


Soul's Refrain

by nelka7122



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: 10000 years later and still waiting for them to get together, Additional Tags in the Author's Notes, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, Izaya in Denial, Light Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, Soulmates, literally the slowest of burns, slight comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nelka7122/pseuds/nelka7122
Summary: "I don’t think it’s as simple as a soul bond. I think it’s more like… Being two halves of the same whole. Yin and Yang, in a way. Darkness and light, never one, without the other," Shinra explains, much to Izaya's chagrin."And you want to know what I think?" Izaya retorts. "I think you’re full of shit."In which Shizuo touches Izaya.And Izaya feels things. Like, emotions and stuff.This is just the beginning of their disastrous journey to discover their love for each other.WhispersI changed the rating for now to M as the chapters for the most part are pretty M for M-ild but when the time comes, the fic rating will probably be changed back to E for E-ventual smut
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Comments: 51
Kudos: 163





	1. Act I, Scene I : Enter Orihara Izaya, Stage Left.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. I am starting a very long, very slow burn fan fiction centered around the theme of soulmates.  
> If you enjoy the first chapter, please do stick along for the ride ^^  
> Also, I will add a few tags in the author's notes for each chapter, so you know roughly what to expect. 
> 
> This chapter's notes include:  
> \- Izaya being an ass  
> \- Low Key initial Shizuo/Vorona 
> 
> _Whispers _I changed the rating for now to M as the chapters for the most part are pretty M for M-ild but when the time comes, the fic rating will be changed back to E for E-ventual smut. Mostly, I thought about it and it is going to take a LONG time to get to that point. For now, I'll keep it that way.__

Izaya plants his feet firmly on the pavement as he steps out of the train. He makes his way out of the station and outside into the familiar embrace of the chilly November air. It’s been quite some time since he’d last been in Ikebukuro, and truthfully he’d been starting to miss it. Or perhaps, he’d been missing another aspect of the loud and boisterous city that doesn’t necessarily include his favorite hobby of people watching.

It’s been how long again? A month, perhaps two, or a few since he’d last visited? He’d lost track after his last fight with that raging beast known as the one and only, Heiwajima Shizuo. Of course, no matter how rough their little spats and tiffs get, Izaya still finds himself drawn to the bright lights and busy streets of his favorite crime-ridden district.

Now despite the fact that it’s cold, Izaya still wanders around the city. He’d come prepared, naturally, having exchanged his typical fur trimmed black coat for a slightly bulkier, equally fur trimmed version; now with extra fur. Luckily, it’s not cold enough for snow just yet, and it makes his trek through Ikebukuro all the less unpleasant, since being cold is significantly better than being cold _and_ wet. Keeping active also helps with warming him up, and he opts for a more fun-filled journey than plain, simple walking. This comes in the form of him merrily skipping along the streets without a care in the world.

So merrily that he almost bumps into a pedestrian, dressed all in black except for a single green hat.

“Watch where you’re going,” the man barks, yet Izaya merely smiles.

“But of course,” he replies before prancing off. A lot more green today _,_ he thinks as he continues his trek through the town.

He doesn’t bother trying to hide his presence, rather, he enjoys the attention he gets. Attention that just adds to his giddiness. Look at all those humans passing by. Their whispers are like music to his ears. 

_What? Orihara Izaya? He’s back? So he’s not dead?_

Silly humans. As if the great and powerful Orihara Izaya could ever just up and die. No, he has far too much to live for than to simply drop dead on the spot like that. That last altercation with Shizuo? Barely a scratch on him. Just another benign argument in their otherwise perfectly toxic relationship. Nothing to worry about, surely not death inducing.

And speak of the devil himself. Before long, Izaya sees a tuft of blonde hair emerge from around the corner of some cheap café. Seems that even in the colder months of the year, Shizuo doesn’t need a winter coat. Just like an animal wouldn’t.

Izaya immediately stops in his tracks and ceases his joyful frolicking, keeping as still as he can. A Tyrannosaurus can’t see you if you don’t move, right? EEEEHHH. Nope, wrong. Contrary to popular belief, a T-Rex _can_ still spot you, even if you _are_ keeping still, so this tactic of his would be foolish in keeping Izaya hidden under Shizuo’s radar. Of course, that is, assuming he wants to remain hidden. It has been too long, truly. Perhaps the opposite is true and Izaya _wants_ Shizuo to spot him.

After which Izaya would offer up his signature smirk and purr in the most enticing way possible _“Long time no see, Shizu-chan~”_

Then, the monster within would finally succumb to rage and lash out at him, ensuing in their typical little cat and mouse game.

The aforementioned scenario doesn’t play out in the same way as in Izaya’s head, for as soon as Shizuo steps out _fully_ from behind the corner, Izaya’s smirk drops into a deep frown, crimson eyes narrowing into slits. Perched on the brute’s shoulder is a dainty feminine figure with her own tuft of blonde hair covered with a simple white hat. Adorned in a matching white coat, yet she still clings to the ex-bartender as if the winter clothes were not suitable enough to keep her warm. That woman – he remembers her. It’s that Russian.

And now Izaya _does_ feel the need to recede into the shadows, if only to silently slither around, trailing the seemingly happy couple to see for himself just what their relationship turns out to be. He absolutely refuses to entertain the thought that Shizuo had actually found himself a _girlfriend_ , of all things. Yet what would be the cause of her clinging to him, if not for the fact that they had a deeper bond surpassing simple friendship?

Before Izaya can make his brisk escape, Shizuo’s golden orbs land on his frame, and Izaya, in an attempt to regain his composure, smirks.  
  


“Long time no see, eh Shizu-chan?” he teases as he carefully approaches him, hands already in his pockets and gripping his favorite pocket knife, should he be in need of additional protection against Shizuo’s inhuman strength. Shizuo’s response comes in the form of a roar, loud enough to rattle the surrounding buildings.

“I-ZA-YA!” 

Normally, this would be Izaya’s cue to take his leave. At this point, Shizuo would come stomping in like Godzilla, making the very ground underneath his feet shake, with a street sign already in hand and at the ready to send Izaya flying out of Earth’s orbit.

Yet this time, it doesn’t happen.

This time, the woman at his side squeezes his arm; a silent plea for him to relinquish his anger because Izaya is simply not worth the trouble.

And this time, Shizuo listens.

“Get out of my sight while I’m still feeling generous, or do you want a repeat of what happened last time, I-za-ya-kuuuuun?”

Izaya’s frown returns, twisting into something very unbecoming of him. His frustration is rather apparent and he doesn’t even attempt to hide it.

Always, always, no matter how hard he struggles, he can never get Shizuo to do exactly as he wants. And here comes this woman, strutting in as if she owns the place, as if she owns _Shizuo_. As if she could actually _tame_ him. No, Shizuo would never be tamed. Not by the likes of this woman. Izaya would never permit that to happen.

“Eh? What’s this, Shizu-chan? You got yourself a girlfriend now?” He says in a mocking manner as he gestures to the woman draped over his arm. The woman, in turn, gives him a murderous glare. Izaya has no trouble brushing her off. She’s irrelevant to him, for now at least.

“I believe congratulations are in order then! Enjoy your pretend relationship and all that. After all, who could truly love a monster like you?” 

It seems that Izaya still has a little bit of his usual charm left, because in the next second, he steps aside just fast enough to have a stop sign whizz past his ear. He looks back at Shizuo, now all riled up and breathing heavily. 

“That’s the best you can do? Has love made you that soft?” Izaya teases as he takes another step back, ready to flee should Shizuo give chase.

Any moment now, any moment… 

“You want to die that badly, flea? Well then by all means, let me grant you your wish,” he growls as he picks up a nearby vending machine almost too effortlessly. 

It’s at this point that Izaya turns on his heel and breaks into a run, and Shizuo gives chase, leaving Blondie behind in the dust, already forgotten.

As should be.

As it has always been.

With Shizuo’s attention focused solely on Izaya. 

\---

Izaya has no trouble evading the numerous road signs that come his way and he only turns his head back every few seconds to catch a glimpses of Shizuo’s unhinged rage. His expression is ever the same, unchanging for the past 10 years of their so called symbiotic relationship with one another. 

Izaya eventually rears around a corner and comes to a dead end. His way out is clear in his mind’s eye. Up on the dumpster, grab the window frame, and over the wall. Izaya should have just enough time to finalize his escape. 

_Should,_ but doesn’t.

He’d miscalculated.

Just as he’s about to jump on a large metal trash container, a hand coils around his ankle and pulls him down. 

_Shit._

He’s knocked to the ground, back hitting the concrete with a loud thud. He’s just lucky he hadn’t landed on his head, although admittedly, lucky is a severe overstatement as the impact of the fall sends a jolt down his spine and his body registers the intensity of the fall by slowly beginning to ache. He’s going to have bruises later, he already knows it. Around his ankle too, given how tightly Shizuo had grabbed him.

Immediately, he regains his composure, drawing out his switchblade and raising it high against the beast in front of him. 

“Come now Shizu-chan, there’s no need to let this fight get too violent,” he huffs as Shizuo takes one step closer, then another.

“So why don’t we come to a truce, and you leave me alone to go on my merry way, hm?” He says that, but there’s a twisted feeling in the pit of his gut that knows very well he doesn’t mean what he says. His last encounter with Shizuo had been months ago, and now, upon his return, he’d seen him with _that woman?_ In a traditional Izaya-like way, Izaya yearns to do everything in his power to disrupt their little date for as long as possible.

“Ye, you’re right. No need to drag this out, so I’ll just kill ya right here and now,” Shizuo retorts as he cracks his knuckles.

Meanwhile, Izaya scrambles to his feet, knife still poised and hands trembling slightly from the cold. He thinks that he must be off his game that day, because before he can react properly, Shizuo grabs his wrist and violently shoves him against the wall. This time, Izaya does hit his head, and he winces from the impact as his skull recoils. 

It is precisely this sustained head trauma that he believes is the cause of a certain oddity he notices. As Shizuo’s fingers curl directly around his lithe wrists, Izaya notes something strange about Shizuo’s touch.

It feels somewhat… different.

The sensation is difficult to describe in detail, but it’s a feeling akin to comfort, rather than pain. Izaya knows very well that another bruise will form on his wrists, but he doesn’t register Shizuo’s fingernails digging into his sensitive skin. What he does notice is a certain warmth, like the kind one gets when sitting by the fire on a cold winter day, curled under a blanket and sipping hot cocoa while watching the flickering flames.

The flickering flames reflected in Shizuo’s honey colored eyed.

It’s not just that. The heat is intense, almost unbearable. It transforms into another sensation with similar properties to an electric shock. Like miniature lightning bolts dancing across his skin, and neurons firing rapid signals that whizz through his nervous system and make his whole body tingle.

It’s not unpleasant. Even though it _should be_. But it’s not. Far from it.

Izaya feels frozen in place, unable make the smallest of movements as his eyes remain set on Shizuo’s fixed expression, golden eyes raging with a murderous rage, hell-bent on making Izaya suffer. Izaya wonders if, perhaps, his head injury would prove to be more severe than initially anticipated, because to make matters worse, instead of cringing away from Shizuo in fear or disgust, he finds himself highly drawn to the touch.

“Flea, what the hell is the matter with you? Stop looking at me like that.” 

Shizuo’s harsh words snap Izaya out of his daze but it’s far too late for him to react properly. In the next second, Shizuo wraps his free arm around Izaya’s throat and shoves him backwards. The back of his head meets the wall again, forcing another tremor to run down his body. Couple that with the coldness of the bricks seeping in through the thick layer of his jacket, and you got yourself a very shocked, very trembling Izaya.

Or rather, he would be trembling from the cold, if not for the suffocating heat radiating from his throat. It’s that same heat as his hand, except now the flames have broken loose and have spread to his lungs, suffocating him and robbing him of his breath. Not because Shizuo’s grip is tight. It’s the softest he’s ever held Izaya.

No. 

It’s because Izaya is panicking. Shizuo’s touch is like a drug. It’s addicting and he wants more of it. He _wants it,_ but is uncertain just why. The only logical explanation would be because Shizuo truly had shoved him hard enough to cause some form of permanent brain injury. It would explain his body’s strange reactions perfectly. The only problem is, he doesn’t have any other symptoms. No blurry vision, no lightheadedness, no incessant throbbing. Just a pure, scalding flame at his neck.

He swallows rather painfully, his throat shifting under Shizuo’s tightening grip. He figures his facial expression must be something atypical for him, because in the next moment, Shizuo leans in close enough for Izaya to feel his hot breath on his face, radiating with the pungent smell of cigarettes.

“Are you scared now, I-za-ya-kun?” Shizuo says, taking particular care to enunciate the syllables of Izaya’s name.

He’s clearly referring to the current power dynamic between them, as opposed to anything Izaya may have in mind. That’s something Izaya can work with, because he is _not_ afraid of Shizuo, nor his abnormal strength. In fact, Izaya has _never_ been afraid of Shizuo. Intrigued? Certainly. Disgusted? But of course.

But never afraid. Even when Shizuo had caught up to him on numerous occasions and had caused more than just a little minor injury. This time is no different. On the contrary, Izaya feels like a giddy schoolgirl when he gives his reply.

“Of you? Never. In fact, it would be simply _divine_ if you _could_ muster up the courage to finally get it over with and kill me, just so you will become a _true_ monster and I can laugh in your face one last time,” Izaya says with false conviction and a conniving smirk.

“Unfortunately, today is just not that day. I have other affairs to attend to, ones that don’t involve you,” he whispers, voice dropping low. His pinned hand still grips his switchblade tightly, and he regains just enough dexterity in his wrist to stab it downwards and force the tip into the flesh of Shizuo’s hand. It’s not much, but a thin trickle of red does begin to seep out of the wound. Shizuo lets out a sharp gasp and in his daze, lets Izaya go completely. Izaya takes the opportunity to slip far away while Shizuo clutches at his hand, attempting to stop the bleeding.

Izaya, admittedly, is a little impressed by his own handiwork, surprised that he’d managed to make the thick skinned monster bleed, even a little. As much as Izaya would love to stay and admire the injury, he fears that he truly must make his leave by now. Shizuo will surely snap out of shock in just a moment or so, and then have him pinned down again within a matter of seconds. And despite the fact that Izaya had been previously invested in ruining Shizuo’s date, now he had much more important feelings to sort out.

Namely, the mystery of the strange reaction to Shizuo’s grip on him.

“It was nice seeing you again, Shizu-chan, but I’m afraid I really must get going now,” he teases as he takes a few steps backwards towards the opening of the alleyway. If Izaya has to choose between the cold air and experiencing that strange touch again, Izaya would rather subject himself to the harshness of winter.

“You damned flea…” Shizuo mutters as he eyes Izaya from head to toe with pure disgust, wiping away at the blood with his other hand.

Izaya doesn’t stick around long enough to see if the wound stops bleeding.


	2. The Kawaii Idol, Kanra-Chan, Loses Her Shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you aikirai for proofreading ;A; 
> 
> Chapter tags include:  
> \- Izaya's mental breakdown part 1 of ?? many  
> \- Shinra being a fake ass bitch

For the next week, Izaya tries his best to ignore the incident he’d had with Shizuo, yet no matter how hard he tries, the memories keep popping up in his head. He can’t seem to shake off that feeling of Shizuo’s touch searing itself into his skin. It keeps him up at night, making it hard for him to get any decent amount of sleep. As a result, he’s been downing cup after cup of extra strong black coffee as if it was his only lifeline.

Now it’s a bit better, he only thinks of Shizuo twice a day, which is a significant improvement as opposed to the usual twenty. This time, his mind is preoccupied with a different matter. Namely the notifications popping up on his computer screen.

His fingers slide gracefully over the keys of his keyboard, tapping happily as he writes up message after message in his favorite online chatting forums. Messages that seem like meaningless gossip at first glance, but hold a much greater significance in the grander scheme of things.

_All part of the plan,_ he thinks and presses send. Then switches over to another room. Within the next few seconds, he gets a message that doesn’t inherently appear malicious. Yet the longer he stares at the words printed at the screen, the harder his heart starts to pound against his ribcage.

[Say, Kanra-san, don’t you think that was a little bit too rude of you to say?] 

Izaya’s eyes narrow, a slow fire kindling in the depths of his chest. His lips form into an ugly, twisted scowl. The more his eyes fixate on the screen, the hotter the flames get. He grits his teeth together, fingers digging violently into his keyboard and distorting his next message with numerous typos.

[FIKC YOU TANAKSA TORIPU JUSYT FUCKL YOI, YPU LITLTE SJIT!  あｄさｓがｊｆがｋもｋふ !] 

He bursts, succumbing completely to the flames inside. Without sending the reply, he picks up his keyboard and brings it over his knee, snapping it entirely in two. With a shrill scream, he throws the keyboard on the ground before jumping up from his seat and kicking it across the room.

He gives into the flames, losing himself in the forest fire raging within. Without a second through, he hooks his hands under his desk and begins lifting with all his might. He doesn’t even register the small click in his wrist as he’s eventually forced to lower the desk down, being too weak to lift it fully. All this just causes him to let out another frustrated scream.

His vision becomes corrupted solely by the color red. Red, red, red as he grabs the monitor off his desk, ignoring the pang of his wrist, and throws it across the room. He’s aiming for the bookshelf but his skinny arms do very little to fully realize his goal. The monitor flies a total of maybe half a meter before landing on the floor, screen instantly cracking into a web of thin lines.

With a grunt, he clutches his actual computer next and slides it off his desk it in the same direction as the monitor. The little box splits open, revealing the intricate network of all its inside components. To add insult to injury, Izaya picks up his laptop from the other side of the desk and throws that into the mix too. The laptop crashes into his open PC with a loud crack, breaking everything on the inside.

After all of that, he stands there, chest heaving up and down with each ragged breath he takes. But he’s not done yet. Far from it. Izaya looks at his chair, eyes narrowing as he comes across yet another object he feels the overwhelming urge to destroy. He picks it up by the arm rests and flings it directly at one of his windows. The chair doesn’t make a single dent and just ricochets right off before landing on the floor on its side, narrowly missing his foot.

Why? Why does he feel so, so damn angry? It’s as if a dam has burst inside him, gushing out a large tsunami. Except the water is like hot lava, burning and destroying everything in its wake.

Brows furrowing in frustration, Izaya shrieks yet again, his throat now aching from the intensity of his screams as he brings back his hand and slams his fist straight into the thick glass. Pain instantly courses through his knuckles, shaking the very bones inside, and as he pulls his hand away he notices a little sliver of crimson staining his window.

Great, just fucking great.

He clutches his hand against his chest tightly, trying to ignore the radiating pain. As he turns, he’s met with Namie standing in front of his mess, face completely stoic and body fully still, with only a mug of tea in her hand. The tea he’d had her prepare. Silently, she places the cup on the now empty desk.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” she says flatly, staring into his eyes and seemingly completely unfazed by his outburst, almost as if she’d always been expecting him to snap. He narrows his eyes at her. Despite most of the anger having dissipated from his system, some still lingers.

“Oh yes. Yes you are. Clean it up _right now_ ,” Izaya says with a low growl to his voice. Her face takes on an actual expression for once. Her eyebrows scrunch together and she scowls right back at him, crossing her arms.

“What is your problem today? What could have possibly pissed you off so much to have you acting like this?” She asks him, and Izaya stands there, breath hitching in his throat as he feels the remainder of the anger leave his system.

In the next moment, he feels almost nothing. As if the feeling had been a fleeting spirit, possessing his body for only a short, temper filled moment, before passing right out like an intangible ghost. Intangible or not, the result is still very much tangible. He looks at the pile on the floor, then back at Namie. He shuts his eyes, inhales, and waits ten seconds before exhaling.

“I-I don’t know,” he stutters out and takes a step backward, pressing his back against the unbreakable sky high windows. He winces slightly, body trembling as he comes to grips with the swelling in his wrist. It’s only now that he registers the full extent of his hand injury. His knuckles are, in fact, creating a slow trail of blood down his arm. 

“Something to do with…him?” Namie asks and Izaya’s mind instantly flickers to Shizuo. He thinks back to a week ago, the scenario replaying itself in his memories. The feeling of Shizuo’s hand grasping his wrist. The exhilarating heat and warmth seeping in through his skin. How that feeling had instantly vanished the moment he’d slipped out of Shizuo’s grip.

Why is he thinking of such things now? What correlation does his fight with Shizuo have to everything he’d just done? What’s more, Namie hadn’t even been inquiring about Shizuo, yet Izaya’s mind had still chosen to instantly flip to the protozoan. Just another thing he hates about him, Izaya supposes. The fact that he’s always on his mind.

He shakes his head in response to her query.

“Something else,” he mutters. “I’ll figure it out. Right now I just…need some air.”

He peels himself from the window and passes by her, heading straight for his coat hanging on the coat rack near the door. He throws it over his shoulders and turns back to her while already holding the door open.

“You don’t actually have to clean it up, I’ll take care of it,” he tells her with a now much clearer head and makes his exit.

\---

Once outside, he pulls out his phone with his healthy hand and dials Shinra’s number. A few rings later and…nothing. Straight to voicemail. Izaya curses under his breath. Figures. It’s Sunday. Shinra doesn’t particularly like to take clients every single day of the week, since he also needs a break from time to time, but surely Izaya should be the exception.

After all, aren’t they friends?

Izaya tries again. Still no reply.

Asshole.

Shoving his phone back in his pocket, Izaya scowls. He hates hospitals and desperately wants to avoid going to one, even if his wrist and knuckles are crying out in pain. His pinkie, in particular, gives him the most grief. It’s only a short train ride to Ikebukuro anyway. He can manage for a few minutes, if only to come and kick Shinra’s ass personally.

Only a few minutes.

Only a few.

\---

Half an hour later, Izaya is outside Shinra’s apartment, pounding at his door with his good hand, though at the rate he is going, he’ll be needing treatment for both hands soon enough. Izaya’s rapping becomes so fervent that the moment Shinra does finally open the door, Izaya nearly whacks him in the face.

“Orihara-kun?“ Shinra asks, somewhat surprised. Izaya drops his hand and clears his throat.

“The one and only,” he replies, voice dripping heavily with sarcasm.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure?” Shinra asks innocently, almost as if feigning ignorance.

“I need your medical expertise? Not like I called you at least five times before coming here to begin with,” Izaya spits out and lifts up his hurt hand very briefly for Shinra to see, before dropping it again. He tries to slip in through the door, thinking that his injury would warrant his entry, but the doctor stands in his way and blocks him.

“I suppose you did call me, didn’t you? Though I would like to remind you, today is my day off,” Shinra trails and Izaya gets the feeling that it’s not the only reason Shinra is denying him service. As if on cue, he hears another voice coming from inside.

“…If there’s nothing wrong then _why does it hurt_?”

Izaya cocks his head to the side with a bitter smile spreading over his lips.

“So that’s why you don’t want me to come in, huh Shinra? Because Shizu-chan is here too,” he says lowly. Shinra looks all too guilty. Before he has a chance to answer, the door swings open fully and Shizuo stands there behind the doctor, hand still on the door while he glares daggers at Izaya.

“I thought I could smell a flea nearby,” he says in a low voice and Izaya smirks at him while discreetly trying to hide his hurt limb behind his back. He doesn’t want Shizuo to see.

“Shizu-chan. How nice to see you again. I see your hand is doing a lot better since our last encounter. Such a shame really, here I was hoping I could make you suffer a little more,” he grins, eyes flickering over the small strip of healed skin on Shizuo’s hand. His comment only prompts Shizuo to bend Shinra’s metal door out of shape with his immeasurable strength.

“What the fuck are you doing here anyway? Up to something shady, no doubt,” Shizuo growls. Izaya gets the feeling that if not for Shinra standing between them, Shizuo would have surely pinned Izaya against a wall by now, with his hand pressing into his neck, threatening to kill him. Not that Izaya would particularly mind that, if it turns out being as thrilling as their encounter before.

Wait, no. What is he thinking? That’s the last thing he wants right now. His wrist surely takes priority.

“I just-“

Before Izaya has a chance to answer, Shinra cuts them both off.

“Okay, that’s enough of that. Shizuo-kun, as I told you before, your hand is completely fine, so if there’s nothing else you need from me, I would appreciate it if you could leave.”

Shizuo seems to mentally debate the instruction, then ultimately concedes and releases his grip on the door. Muttering obscenities under his breath, he slips past Shinra with his eyes glued to Izaya like a hawk. All the while, he’s careful not to touch Izaya, and Izaya shifts his body to keep his injured wrist away from view.

As soon as Shizuo descends down the elevator, Izaya lets out a sigh of relief.

“Going to let me in now?” he asks, turning his attention to Shinra.

“Of course,” the underground doctor replies and holds the door open for Izaya to enter. As soon as he does, he comes face to…err, shadow with Shinra’s Dullahan girlfriend. If Celty had a head, it would surely be set in an expression of disgust. Izaya merely brushes her off without so much as a greeting and goes to sit at the dining room table while she escapes to a different room.

“Show me that wrist again, won’t you?” Shinra asks as he takes a seat just next to Izaya and spreads out his medical equipment. Izaya lifts up his hand to show him. By now, the blood on his knuckles had long dried and there’s some visible bruising, with his pinky finger being particularly swollen and covered entirely in a purple tint. 

“Well, this really doesn’t look good,” Shinra comments as he grabs Izaya by the forearm and moves his hand around, attempting to get a better look.

“No shit, tell me something I don’t know,” Izaya snaps back rather rudely. He doesn’t know why but he’s irritated again. It’s not the same rage filled feeling as before, but he’s still annoyed. If only Shinra could just get on with it already. To which Shinra grabs his fingers and, one by one, begins bending them back and forth. Izaya is quiet for the most part, but as soon as the doctor gets to his pinky, he lets out a loud yelp. 

“Yup, definitely broken,” Shinra states as he presses on Izaya’s pinky again. Each time Izaya feels the pressure against his digit, he groans in pain. _If you already know that, why the hell do you keep bending it?_

“Though there doesn’t seem to be any misalignment with the bone, so it should heal back just fine if you keep it still and don’t take it out of the splint I’m going to put on you,” the doctor explains, then proceeds to cleans away any residue blood with a cotton swab dipped in hydrogen peroxide. Izaya winces slightly but otherwise sits completely still and lets him do his work. A few moments later, Izaya’s hand is wrapped in clean white bandages and his pinky set into place with a plastic splint.

“Just make sure to put some ice on that from time to time when you get home and you should be good to go within a few days,” Shinra comments as he starts putting away his medical equipment.

“Thanks,” Izaya says and looks over his bandaged injury. It still hurts like hell, even if the pain isn’t as intense as before.

“Aren’t you going to give me any painkillers though?” he then asks. Shinra raises an eyebrow.

“Do you _want_ painkillers?” he retorts.

“Yea, obviously.”

Though come to think of if, there is also something else Izaya wants to inquire about as well. Something that’s been bothering him quite heavily for the past few days.

“And while we’re on the topic, do you have…any good sleeping pills? Something strong that will knock me out for hours. I… haven’t been sleeping all that well lately,” he confesses and shifts his eyes to the table, as if it was something to be embarrassed about.

“Sure, I’ll see what I can do,” Shinra replies as he recedes back into his quarters and returns moments later with two bottles of pills. He lifts up the first one.

“This is the painkiller. Take one as needed no earlier than four hours in between doses.”

He hands the bottle to Izaya, allowing him to inspect it closely. The capsule is filled with about 15 or so small oval blue and white pills. Apparently, it should be enough for Izaya to bear through the pain. 

“And this one is for sleep,” Shinra continues and slides the pills for Izaya to take. Izaya’s eyes widen to impossible sizes as soon as they land on the pill bottle.

“Shinra, what the fuck is this?” He asks as he lifts up the bottle with his healthy hand. Inside are ten _giant_ pills, at least 3 centimeters in length.

“You wanted something strong, so here you go. One pill half an hour before bed time and you will be out like a light. Just take caution not to mix the two pills together.”

Izaya looks at the pills in disdain but ultimately decides to accept his fate with a low sigh that borders on a high pitched whine.

  
“Sure,” he says as he stands from the table. His intention is to leave, but Shinra stops him by clearing his throat. 

“Ehem, aren’t you forgetting something?” The doctor asks, and Izaya looks at him quizzically.

“The bill?”

Shinra slides over a piece of paper towards Izaya with a number written on it. He glances at the amount and his face contorts into pure shock.

“Excuse me? What in the _hell_ is this? ¥150,000 for a hand injury? You have got to be kidding me.”

Now, Izaya isn’t exactly stingy with his money, but even he doesn’t go waving it around and throwing bills at the poor. He has the money, but what Shinra is attempting to charge him is pushing the limit. Shouldn’t _he_ , of all people, get a discount?

So much for being friends…

“Don’t forget the pills, and the fact that you came here without an appointment on my day off. Factor all that in and…” Shinra says as he taps the slip of paper with his index finger.

“Of course, if you are unhappy with the bill, I do encourage you to use other services next time.”

Izaya scoffs and clicks his tongue before fishing out his wallet from his coat pocket. The task proves to be somewhat difficult with his currently broken finger, but he somehow manages. He takes out 15 ¥10,000 notes and throws them on the table with little to no care for where they land.

Shinra is damn lucky that Izaya is the type of person to carry around suspiciously large quantities of money in his wallet at all times. More often than not, his job involves not so legal payments that his bank shouldn’t be aware of, and this just happens to be one of those payments.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Izaya mutters and leaves the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3cm? Haha Izaya-kun, as if that’s the biggest thing you’re going to be swallowing in this fan fic lol :)


	3. If Sweet Dreams are Made of This, Then Nightmares are Made of Pudding  and Broken Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags for this chapter?  
> Sweet dreams are made of cheese  
> Who am I to dis a Brie  
> I cheddar the world and a Feta cheese  
> Everybody's looking for Stilton

By the time Izaya comes home, it’s already dark outside and Namie is long gone. He switches on the lights in his pitch black apartment and expects to be greeted by the mess of his outburst just earlier in the day. To his surprise, the floor is absolutely spotless with not a single piece of broken technology in sight, and given the lines on the carpet, he can tell it had been vacuumed. Izaya cracks a small smile as he slides over to his desk. He reads the small post it note Namie had written him.

[Don’t bother ordering new equipment, I already did. Express delivery, should arrive in 1-2 days]

His smile widens. Ah, so she had cleaned up after all, even despite her refusal to do so earlier. He’d be sure to give her a raise later, he thinks. She deserves it.

\---

Half an hour later Izaya lays in his bed with a glass of water in one hand. He’d already taken the painkiller just shortly after entering his house and admittedly, the pain in his wrist had subsided significantly. However, he debates if the consumption of the other little pill - or rather, extremely large pill- in his hand is a good idea. On the other hand, he knows he won’t be able to fall asleep that easily once he closes his eyes. For the past few days, he’s been feeling a little bit like an alien in his own bed. He’s been shifting uncomfortably, sort of like the princess in that one fairy tale, with a pea under her mattress. Maybe it is the mattress?

Tomorrow. Tomorrow for sure he’ll go and order a new mattress. It will be a hassle, since most likely he will have to use his phone rather than ordering comfortably from his computer, but that’s the price you pay, Orihara. That’s the price you pay for destroying your own shit.

So what if Shinra had warned him not to mix the two together. What’s the worst that could happen? With a shrug of his shoulders, Izaya decides to just fuck it. He pops the pill in his mouth and washes it down with copious amounts of water, just trying to get the oversized thing down his throat. Then, he lays flat on his back, head against the pillow and staring at the ceiling, eyelids getting heavier and heavier by the second.

\---

_A child. That’s what he is. No older than ten. He’s alone. All alone in the darkness. It’s because his eyes are closed, that’s why there’s no light. Slowly, he flutters then open. Those chocolate orbs scan his surroundings. A house. A normal, middle class house for a normal, middle class family. In particular, he’s the kitchen of such house._

_He looks up at the towering rectangle of metal in front of him. The refrigerator. Of course, there is something in there that he wants. He opens it, eyes scanning the shelves for that one particular item. His smiling face turns into a scowl as he can’t locate his prized possession._

_A pudding cup. That’s all he wants._

_A single cup of pudding that could satisfy his sweet tooth. The very last pudding cup he’d been saving for himself. He’d been saving it all morning, he’d even put a note on it to warn any potential greedy hands that this pudding cup was indeed his, and **only** his to eat. _

_Yet now it’s gone. That poor pudding cup._

_Sadness. He feels great sadness bubbling in his chest. A sadness that dissipates into unbounded rage._

_Who?_

_Who could have **possibly** dared to steal his very own pudding cup he’d been looking forward to eating all day? Could the world truly be this cruel as to deprive such a small child of his only joy in life? This one, simple pudding cup. _

_He whips his head around, looking for signs of the perpetrator who dared have the courage to steal his possession. There, sitting at the dining room table, is the criminal he’s been looking for. Another child; a boy with dark hair and a stoic expression. The one and only pudding thief, with a spoon full of pudding in his mouth, cheeks moving happily as his tongue laps up the very last drops of the congealed vanilla substance._

_The pain, the anguish, the **betrayal!**_

_His own brother!_

_Suddenly, he finds himself filled with so much rage he can barely contain it. It feels as if his heart will burst from the intensity of the emotion. It pounds against his chest, like a rhythmic drum going ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. A fire burns inside, threatening to break out.. Like a dragon charging up its breath, heat boiling in the pit’s of his stomach._

_So much fire._

_Pure red. Red, red, red hot rage tainting his vision._

_He gives into the rage._

_And then, nothing. Just a sudden realization that he can no longer move._

_His tiny hands are raised high above his head. In them is an object far too big to fit on his miniscule palms. 300 pounds of pure metal. A child, a mere child, lifting such a thing above his head. Such a thing should be impossible. Surely, he should be crushed by the weight of the refrigerator._

_Such a small boy._

_And he does break._

_Every bone in his body splintering at once, so easily like stepping on twigs in the forest. One by one, snap, snap, snap. The sickening sound echoes through his ears, over and over on repeat like a broken record._

_Then the pain comes, each of his limbs crying out for help. He can’t move. He’s paralyzed, forced to wallow in his own anguish._

_\---_

Izaya’s eyes fly open and he shoots up in bed, panting hard and drenched from head to toe in a cold sweat. He takes in deep and slow breaths, trying to regulate his temporary tachycardia. He lifts up his arms shakily and inspects them. Both are completely healthy, apart from his one broken finger which he’d already had looked over. Thank goodness, no other bones are broken.

He leans back against the pillow again, his breath falling into a steady rhythm as it should. His mind jumps back to the dream, the scene replaying itself behind his closed eyelids.

What kind of dream was that?

So intense, so vivid, so painfully and awfully _real._

Izaya tries to ignore the pounding in his head as his gaze briefly shifts to the two bottles of pills on his bedside table.

_So that’s the worst that could happen_ , he thinks as he recalls Shinra’s warning. A vivid hallucination brought on by a bad combination of two chemicals that shouldn’t have been mixed.

Noted, Izaya won’t be repeating that mistake again.

His eyes then shift to the digital clock next to the pills. 11:08, it reads. So he had actually managed to sleep through the entire night. This would be a positive, if not for the fact that now he’d overslept and was already behind on work. With a low groan, Izaya slides out of bed and prepares for the hard day ahead.

Well, it’s not as bad as it could be. This time, his job isn’t something particularly difficult, nor is it something that requires him to leave his house. Both of which are good things, considering his splintering headache and his currently borderline immobile hand.

Another low groan and he grabs the painkiller bottle off his nightstand before popping a pill and helping it down with a gulp of leftover water from the night before. It’s been over 4 hours already, so he should be fine, and the pill should get his head and his finger in check. Both were starting to act up a little.

The biggest problem he’ll have to face is the fact that he currently doesn’t have a computer to work on. Not to mention, all the work he has to do from his phone will have to be done with one hand, as his injured one hurts every time he tries to hold his phone or move his thumb.

As soon as he trudges his feet to the foot of his staircase, Namie comes out of the kitchen and places a cup of warm tea on his painfully barren desk and gets to work, sorting out some old files.

He greets her quietly and gives his thanks for the tea, eyes glued to the desk and lamenting the loss of his poor equipment.

She grunts some sort of reply, and that’s the end of their encounter.

\---

The day rolls by painfully slow and Izaya, for the first time in a long while, feels _bored_ and slightly restless. Yet at the same time, he doesn’t want to do anything. Thankfully, no more bursts of random anger. Despite this, he still let’s Namie go a little early, simply because he feels _tired_. Almost abnormally so, as if he’d been running around chasing crooks all day, despite the fact that he’d been stuck to his couch all afternoon.

At least he’d finished his work, so after an extremely difficult shower on account of his wrist, he finally gets himself to bed at an early hour. It must be the stress. Surely. The stress from his injury, the stress from the dream, the stress from…Shizuo.

Silently, Izaya’s lips curl into a small frown as the thought pops up in his head. Why is he thinking of Shizuo, out of all people again? He pushes that thought of his mind, deciding to focus instead on wishfully hoping for pleasant dreams this night.

Ootoro.

That’s what he wants to focus on: a humongous pile of ootoro all for him to devour.

He smiles at the thought. Yes, a sea of ootoro would be nice.

He closes his eyes, waiting for sleep to take him.

Yet after what feels like an eternity in bed, his eyes shoot open again. He really should have ordered that mattress after all. With an irritated groan, Izaya rolls over and pops the cap on those sleeping pills. Strange as their effect had been, they had been effective in ‘knocking him out like light’, to paraphrase Shinra. And since he’d taken the painkiller a few hours ago, the sleeping pill shouldn’t be a problem.

He sighs and swallows the enormous thing whole.

\---

_He’s a child again, the same one as the night before. This time, the setting is different. He’s in the front of a classroom, waiting for the teacher to come. He starts to hear something from the back of the room. Two kids shouting for his attention, calling him stupid._

_“Idiot, idiot~”_

_  
They tease. How mean, how hateful. Little children sure can be cruel._

_But he’s not sad._

_No._

_Instead, he’s mad. That same fire bubbling in his chest again, forcing him to erupt. He snaps the pencil in his hands into two pieces. He picks up his desk with far too much ease and throws it straight at the kids, forcing it to crash into the wall behind them and create a large indent._

_Another snap._

_It’s not another pencil snapping, it’s his bones again._

_\---_

_The dream shifts._

_Suddenly, he’s on a total rampage, wreaking havoc and destroying everything in his path. He wants to let it out. Let it all out. The anger boils and bubbles inside him, like a hot kettle on a stove someone forgot to turn off. Even once the water evaporates, the kettle keeps heating up, burning up until it breaks. And still, the heat won’t subside._

_He huffs and puffs, like the big bad wolf about to blow the third little piggy’s house down. He’d already destroyed the other two, leaving a trail of destruction and debris behind him. Except unlike the wolf, he has enough lung capacity to blow the last house down._

_He busts straight through a concrete wall without difficulty, a stop sign clutched tightly in his little hand. He stands there, waiting for the anger to vanish and for the pain to set in._

_And it does. Over and over._

_Snap, snap, snap go his bones._

_\---_

_The scene shifts again. This time, he’s sitting on a playground with his pudding stealing brother. They’re sitting on one of those circular metal climbing cages, watching the sun slowly set beyond the skyline._

_“Hey, are you scared of me?” He asks timidly._

_Again and again._

_“Are you scared of me?”  
  
“Are you scared of me?”  
  
“Are you scared of me?” _

_Each time he says those words, the child’s face distorts into someone else completely, until he’s staring at an exact mirror image ten year old Izaya. But if this child is Izaya, then who is he? Is he still Izaya, or is he someone else? Is the other Izaya also Izaya, or does he just look like him?_

_He looks down at his hands. His legs. His clothes. It’s definitely Izaya’s mind, but not his body._

_Quickly, he returns his gaze to the other Izaya next to him, only in time for that Izaya to give him a gentle smile, one filled with the childhood innocence he’d still possessed back then._

_“Not particularly,” he whispers, the orange light of the setting sun illuminating his brown eyes and bringing out the crimson undertone in them._

_“I’m not scared of you, [Ssssssssssshhhhh].”_

_The name is blurred, he asks little Izaya to repeat it._

_“I said, I’m not scared of you, [Shhhhhhhh],” the other Izaya repeats calmly. Still, the name remains muddled._

_All of a sudden, the other Izaya’s face twists into a malicious smirk, all childhood innocence cast aside._

_“I just want to kill you,” he taunts and pushes him off the metal cage, sending him spiraling into the empty darkness below._

_\---_

Izaya jolts awake, chest heaving with heavy breaths and body tingling from the impact of having fallen to the ground. Except he’s not on the ground. He’s on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his dark room.

_Calm down,_ he tells himself as he checks the time briefly. 5:30 in the morning. He’d slept for a solid 8 hours, but what good was it if he was just going to wake up even more tired and exhausted than before?

Some sleeping pills, Shinra.

Really.

_Once is chance, twice is coincidence. If it happens a third time, then surely it’s happenstance._

If it happens one more time, then he’ll know for sure: it’s the pills causing this.


	4. Stuck Between Egg Puns and a Hyperglycemic Coma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments ;w; I really do appreciate them, please do keep them coming even if I don't always manage to reply to every one <3
> 
> Chapter otherwise known as: Izaya proves to be an eggcellent pitcher 
> 
> Tags for this chapter:  
> \- Eggs and a single banana

One more day. That’s how long Izaya keeps taking the pills. Just one more day if only to test out his theory. Just as expected, the strange dreams still persist the next night, except the dreams become more vivid. The sound of breaking bones echo through his room even when he opens his eyes in the morning, panting and drenched in sweat. So, Izaya puts away the pills. He’s sure of it now that they must be causing his nightmares. What other explanation is there? He even puts off the pain killers just in case, even when his broken finger starts to ache again. Better his finger hurting than him being unable to sleep.

Yet even after he throws away the pills, the dreams persist. And persist. Every night for the next seven days straight, forcing him to awaken in the middle of the night, shaking and trembling in his bed. He becomes scared to go to sleep and often stays up as long as he can, just to avoid sleeping. He ends up falling asleep at his desk half the time and waking up with intense back pains and neck cramps. He feels as if he’s going insane half the time, forced to repeat the same incidents over and over.

Not to mention, he feels irritated. More often than not he will start the day feeling restless and angry. It’s almost as if the same fury in his dreams has seeped over into reality, controlling his life. He finds himself wanting to break things often, namely pencils and other small objects like that. Or cigarettes, if he smoked any. Which he may as well have been doing because his throat constantly aches as if he’d been chain smoking all day.

Recently, he’s even developed a new craving: sugar. For at least a few days now, Izaya has been craving sweets. He doesn’t know why, and so far he’s been pushing those craving down since he doesn’t want to poison his body with artificial sweeteners. Other times, the cravings get too powerful for him to control. And today is the very day that he finally loses that fight. If his already tired and broken down body wants to feel even more shit by getting a sugar induced stomach ache, then _by god let’s do it_.

It’s a getting bit late and the sun has long set, but there’s a 24 hour convenience store not far from his house. Imagine him, Orihara Izaya, shopping at some lowly convenience store for a quick sugar fix – now that had to be a first. At this point, however, Izaya just doesn’t seem to care. Well, maybe he cares a little, given how he puts his hood over his head and dons a pair of sunglasses, despite the fact that it’s night time. He wants to look inconspicuous, but somehow attracts even more attention than he’d bargained for. Not like he hadn’t predicted that though, but better look shady than have people actually recognizing him.

He enters the store with a clear goal in mind. Just some sweet biscuits, something that would go well with tea. That would surely curb his sugar cravings. He wanders around the isles, picking up products and silently judging them with a sour face as he wonders how in the hell people could consume such junk. Yet his own basket is no stranger to junk food, for as soon as he approaches the counter, he finds that it’s filled to the brim with sweets.

For a moment, Izaya feels as if he’s dissociating or something, since he can’t remember just when he’d put all those objects in his basket. Two 4-packs of pudding- one vanilla and one chocolate, a liter carton of milk, a 5 pack of strawberry milk boxes, a tub of caramel ice cream, 3 cups of instant noodles, a carton of eggs, a box of chocolate cake mix, and a banana. One single banana that Izaya had been at least somewhat conscious when putting in his basket. And when the cashier asks if that will be all for him, Izaya opens his mouth and says:

  
  
“And a pack of Blue American Spi-“ he stops himself before he can utter the final words. The clerk gives him a confused glance. 

“No, actually, that’s it,” he finally says after an awkward pause and throws a few bills out to pay for his items. He grabs the bag and makes a hasty exit, anxious to just get home because he’s growing more and more worried about his mental state as of late. Strange dreams, random emotional outburst, cravings. Even now, he’d almost bought a pack of cigarettes even though he definitely doesn’t smoke and has no desire to start.

He’s slowly starting to think that he _must_ be going crazy, because as soon as he leaves the store, his nose starts to twitch because of an unpleasant odor. The smell of cigarettes. Nervously, he touches his lips with his index finger to make sure he isn’t dissociating again and doesn’t in fact have a cigarette between his lips.

He doesn’t.

Good.

He turns on his heel to walk back home only to walk straight into something incredibly stiff, incredibly hard, and…warm?

“I-za-ya-ku-u-un!”

???

  
That’s Shizuo’s voice. Great, now he’s having auditory hallucinations about Shizuo.

Still, Izaya looks up only to see … that yes, the figure in front of him _is_ indeed Shizuo, and with a vending machine raised over his head at that.

“Shizu-ch-“ Izaya doesn’t even manage to utter out the rest of the nick name, because Shizuo is already hurling the vending machine straight at him. Even in such close proximity, Izaya dodges by jumping up and ricocheting himself off the machine as it’s in mid air, straight into a back flip before gracefully landing on his feet like a cat.

“What do you want now, Shizu-chan? Did you miss me that much, that you had to come all the way for a visit?” Izaya teases. Shizuo just picks up the half broken vending machine and throws it straight at Izaya, only for Izaya to side step it easily.

“Don’t play dumb, you got that shady flea stench all over you. Who walks around at night in sunglasses unless they’re doing something suspicious?” Izaya merely rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue.

“You. You do, Shizu-chan, or are you now too stupid to see your own hypocrisy?” Izaya retorts, pointing his finger straight at the pair of blue sunglasses perched on Shizuo’s nose. Shizuo looks like he’s just about ready to pop a vein in his head.

“Don’t screw with me you damn flea, you’re up to something! I just know it.”

“Wow Shizu-chan, you came here all the way from Ikebukuro just to tell me that? I’m touched that you think of me that way, really, but as you can see, we’re not in Ikebukuro and I’m not doing anything suspicious or of dubious intentions, therefore your memo is really unnecessary this time,” Izaya says just as Shizuo is in the middle of ripping out a “Handicap Parking” sign.

Then, Shizuo stops as realization dawns on him.

“...This is Shinjuku?” Shizuo asks. Izaya raises a curious eyebrow, but decides to amuse him. 

“Yes Shizu-chan, this is indeed my own home turf. Shinjuku. Shi-n-ju-ku,“ He asks, annunciating his words slowly and clearly, as if he was asking speaking to a child, because being honest, mentally he was speaking to one.

“So I’ll ask again: What did I ever do to warrant such an unexpected visit, especially from you of all people?”

Shizuo looks at him with a dumbfounded expression.

“I dunno,” he finally says. “I was just walking and ended up here.” He shrugs his shoulders casually. It’s almost as if all anger dissipates for just one second as for once, he’s able to think clearly. But just as quickly, Shizuo grits his teeth, eyes narrowing again.

“But you clearly must have done something shady for me to end up here, hunting you down like the parasite you are.”

Izaya takes in a deep breath because he feels like with each passing second, he’s losing more and more brain cells by simply listening to Shizuo’s logic.

_Shizu-chan, you are indeed living proof that blonde jokes aren’t just based on stereotypes but on real people,_ he thinks. He wants to say it out loud but ultimately ends up refraining from doing so. Instead, he decides to go about this calmly, since he hadn’t done anything illegal (or borderline illegal) or even morally questionable in at least the last two hours.

“As you can see, the only thing I have been up to is some late night shopping,” he explains as he lifts up his bag of groceries.

“But after looking at your disgusting monster face, I’m afraid I’ve lost my appetite. So why don’t you just take this off my hands and be on your merry way back to Ikebukuro, and back to your lovely little hovel that you’ve crawled out of,” Izaya says as he attempts to shove the bag into Shizuo’s hands before making his swift exit. In the end, he just can’t resist being a teasing little piece of shit.

But what he had said is true to an extent. Izaya had lost his craving for sugar the moment Shizuo appeared. The part that is untrue, however, is his claim of being absolutely repulsed by Shizuo. Since, he isn’t. Even Izaya has to admit that Shizuo, at the very least, is not ugly.

Shizuo, naturally, doesn’t budge, because of course, of-freaking-course the brute never does what Izaya wants him to. So Izaya has to open the bag and show him that it’s nothing dangerous or of dubious origins

“See Shizu-chan, nothing to be suspicious of.”

Shizuo looks at the contents of the bag and gives Izaya a skeptical look, still refusing to take it.

“What the hell is this?”

  
  
Now Izaya feels as if he’s the one about to pop a vein in his head.

“Food,” he replies as plainly as he can. Shizuo raises his eyebrow, clearly questioning his intent.

“Why is it all junk food and sweets? Thought you hated this type of stuff.”

“How nice of you to keep track of my dietary preferences. However, how could you possibly know that I don’t sometimes feel like indulging in a little guilty pleasure?”

“Because you’re a health freak, that’s why. Always have been.”

  
  
“Even I get my cravings here and there, though as I mentioned before, you made me lose my appetite, so just take the damn bag and leave. Me. Alone. I have more important things to deal with than you acting like a stubborn child.”

  
  
And that much is true. Izaya does have more important things. There is still the mystery of the terrifying nightmares looming over him. He’d stopped taking the pills, so why were they still persisting? 

It’s actually quite amusing, he thinks, how when Izaya is actually guilty, Shizuo is far too easy to trick. Just like the whole incident with leaving a note on his front door telling him that Izaya had moved, only to try and frame a murder on him. And yet when Izaya is completely innocent… That’s when Shizuo decides to be most skeptical.

“Did you know I was coming here or something?”

Izaya raises his eyebrow and gives Shizuo a look that just screams ‘really?’

“How would I have possibly known that? Unless, do you think I could be psychic?”

“Who knows what tricks you have up your sleeves,” Shizuo mutters and Izaya rolls his eyes. Whys is he so hard to sway? What could possibly be going up in that head of his?

  
  
“Why is it so hard for your primitive brain to comprehend that I was just out for a late night stroll.”

“Because you’re always up to something shady, I just know it, like a god damn louse out for blood. You expect me to believe that you just HAPPEN to buy things I like, just HAPPEN to be in the same place as me, and just HAPPEN to offer said things to me? If it’s from you, then it must be poisoned,” Shizuo snaps back.

Izaya rolls his eyes again, this time so hard they might just pop out of their sockets.

“Yes Shizuo, congratulations. You did it, you figured out my master plan: to buy pudding cups and _somehow_ sneak poison into the already pre-packaged cups without making it look like it was open, doing it all shamelessly out in the open for all the store customers to see. Gee, you really are putting that one and only brain cell of yours to good use, aren’t you?”

  
  
Shizuo grips the “handicapped parking” sign once again, but this time rips it straight from the ground as if it was a simple flower and he was presenting it to Izaya.

“Are you calling me stupid?” He barks as he throws the sign like a dart, aiming straight for Izaya’s head. Izaya twirls his body like a ballerina and even does a little bow at the end to show off.

“Is that what I’m doing? Well, who knows...” he says in a snarky tone just as Shizuo is in the middle of ripping up another street sign. In the distance, the sound of cars honking can already be heard as the sign had most likely caused some sort of road accident. As much as Izaya loves their little tiffs, now is just not the time and place for this sort of behavior and he would prefer to avoid attracting more attention to himself, so he figures he should at least try to prevent Shizuo from going completely ballistic.

“Look, Shizu-chan, stop being so melodramatic. It’s not poisoned and I’ll do you a service and prove it to you, just this once.”

He then takes one of the pudding cups – the vanilla one, since he figures it will be the less awful of the two – and peels off the wrapper. He gives it an experimental sniff, and the artificial vanilla aroma immediately fills his nose. Disgusting. He wonders why he’s even doing this, but he’s stubborn enough to prove a point so he will do it, mark his words, he will.

And then, he does it. He opens his mouth and tilts the cup, forcing half of its contents straight into his mouth. The moment the vanilla hits his tongue, he freezes. The cup falls from his hands and splatters on the ground, spilling the contents onto the pavement. He doesn’t move a muscle for a second, and just allows the goop to evenly spread throughout his mouth. It’s sweet, so fucking sweet he can barely take it. He leans his head forward and, keeping an open mouth, allows the pudding to fall unceremoniously to the ground and join the rest of the spilled liquid from the cup. He then proceeds to gather up his saliva and uses it as a way to scoop up any remainder pudding in his mouth before spitting it out.

“SO IT IS POISONED!” Shizuo shouts almost too triumphantly, as if celebrating the fact that Izaya just potentially tried to poison himself.

“No, you idiot,” Izaya gasps out as he wipes his tongue with the back of his palm.

“It’s disgusting, way too sweet for me. How can you even eat this stuff?” And then, the ache sets in, and Izaya has to rub the side of his jaw, as if that could even help him with the oncoming pain.

“So much sugar just makes my teeth hurt ugh.”

He’s so distracted by the ache in his teeth he barely sees the street sign coming straight for his head. He does end up noticing in the nick of time, and just barely manages to jump over the pole as it comes his way.

“If you hate it so much, why did you buy it, HUH IZAYA-KUN!?” Shizuo shouts, and at this point, Izaya’s patience is really starting to wear thin. So typical of Shizuo, to just start charging in without thinking.

“Very well then, don’t believe me. Like I care what you think anyway. But I was serious when I said I don’t want this junk anymore, so you might as well have it, or else it will go to waste. But since you are so adamant about refusing it, then I guess it just _might_ go to waste.”

With that, Izaya sets the bag on the ground and takes out the carton of eggs that would be necessary for the instant cake mixture. He takes one of the eggs out and twirls it in his hand, before pulling his arm back as if he was a baseball player and throwing it straight in Shizuo’s direction. The action does put a bit of strain on his wrist and finger, but the pain is very minimal as the egg is still a very small, very light object to throw.

Shizuo reacts quickly and uses the flat surface of the parking sign to swat the egg away. It doesn’t bounce off, and instead splatters against the sign. It is still just an egg.

“What the hell are you doing, flea?” Shizuo growls as Izaya throws another egg, and another, all which Shizuo catches with the parking sign.

“Trying to make you see reason.” Izaya muses while continuing to throw eggs, and Shizuo continues to swat them out of the way, until there is only one left. _Last one, better make it count._ He pretends to throw the egg, aiming at Shizuo’s shirt, and Shizuo takes the bait. He instantly moves the sign to cover his bartender uniform. (How the man is still not cold despite it being the beginning of December will never cease to baffle Izaya). This time, there is no loud cracking of the egg against the painted metal, because Izaya still has it in his hand, and before Shizuo can realize what Izaya is up to, the last egg hits him square in the face.

For a moment, Izaya just stares and watches the congealed substance slide over Shizuo’s sunglasses, falling off his face in little clumps. And then, he can’t hold it in anymore. He bursts out laughing, clutching his stomach as his giggles shake his entire body.

“Say, Shizu-chan, wouldn’t you say I’m an _egg_ -cellent pitcher? Honestly, seeing you like this really _cracks_ me up. Normally I’d be pretty pissed at you, but you know what, this time I think _omelettin_ ’ it slide,” Izaya manages to choke out in between wheezes as Shizuo takes off his glasses, dangerously slow, and flicks the remainder of the whites off.

“Now you’ve done it,” he growls under his breath as he folds the glasses and proceeds to neatly put them away in his pocket. He’s dangerously calm, like a calm before the storm. In the next moment, Shizuo walks over to one of the parked cars, gives it a look over, and in a huff, lifts the vehicle over his head.

“IIIIIII-ZAAAAA-YAAAAA.”

With a small giggle, Izaya gives his parting words.

“As much as I would LOVE to continue this _egg_ -citing conversation with you, I do believe that this is my cue to make like a chicken and flee. Ta-ta, Shizu-chan.”

And then, he runs.

\---

Izaya doesn’t exactly keep track of whether or not Shizuo is still chasing him, and he doesn’t come across any more wild flying vending machines. But just because he can no longer spot Shizuo doesn’t mean he lets his guard down. He runs for a good 15 minutes or so, only stopping when the burning sensation in his lungs proves to be too much. In those 15 minutes, he starts getting the craving again- craving something sweet, and just something to have in between his lips. He passes by another convenience store, this one significantly smaller, and closing in about 10 minutes.

_It’s now or never._

Izaya enters, and this time has enough self control to fully analyze what he is going to buy. No more pudding cups, for sure. This time, Izaya picks out a box of banana pocky, since he laments the loss of that single banana. It’s the only item in that whole bag of junk food he regrets letting go. He leaves the store with only this item, and upon stepping back outside, he takes one of the banana flavored pretzels sticks and places it between his lips like he would a cigarette. He licks some of the coating off experimentally, and then scoffs.

It really is too sweet.

So why does he keep on eating it?


	5. Izaya the Book Killer and Namie the Bitch Slapper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aikirai? More like aisuki - because let's be real, we still missing that one big D :3 <3 
> 
> Also thank you for the comments ^^ I would like to reply but what can I say except ~~you're welcome?~~ thank you.  
> I think it's much easier than cluttering the comments 
> 
> Tags for this chapter?  
> \- Avocado  
> \- Izaya is a rabid cat  
> \- Namie finally loses her cool

Izaya is still a little jittery from his encounter with Shizuo. He feels elevated, almost excited even, as if he’d been injected with a shot full of energy. Is it maybe just the sugar rush? Izaya isn’t one for sweets usually, so perhaps it was the pocky that made him feel like a hyperactive child. He ends up coming home late and after finishing up his nightly routine, slips himself under the covers of his bed.

While it is true that he dreads falling asleep in fear of experiencing the same bone crushing nightmares again, there is also a part of him that thinks perhaps today will be different. If he falls asleep now, surely, he won’t have to relive the horrifying experience. He hasn’t been taking the sleeping pills for over a week now, or any other pills for that matter.

Surely…surely this time…

\---

_For once, Izaya is back in his own beautiful body and not an observant watching from the perspective of a child’s eyes. He’s at home, alone, staring out of his sky high windows and overlooking the city below._

_Beautiful._

_Beautiful, that’s what it is._

_Simply beautiful._

_All the little humans walking around like little, tiny ants while Izaya towers above them, watching, observing, enjoying their reactions like an omniscient God._

_There goes that woman with her husband by her side, pretending to be oblivious as she bumps into the man she’s having an affair with. And the young boy stuck in a love triangle with two girls, even though he never asked for it and is only trying to seem cool to his friends despite being gay. Or even that one boy who claims to be in love with his big breasted classmate but is secretly sexually involved with the guy whose brother beat up his best friend’s girlfriend. That last one is particularly convoluted, and Izaya revels in the complexity of their_ _situations._

_Yes, humans truly are entertaining creatures, to say the least._

_Suddenly, the glass of the window disappears and offers him the world below, beckoning Izaya to take that one little step over the edge. The overwhelming urge to let go and throw himself from the tall height versus the unavoidable human instinct to survive as long as possible; those are the two opposing forces currently at battle in his own mind. But this is a dream, after all. Izaya has nothing to fear, for even if he so chooses to accept his fate, the death he feels in his dream will only be a simulation. And he’s experienced the pain of having his body broken and twisted in every which way. To him, such a death at his very own hands is merciful._

_Izaya takes the leap of faith, spreading out his arms like a majestic eagle as he falls. Down, down, to the ground._

_He doesn’t hit the concrete, as he’d been expecting. Instead, he lands one a soft and fluffy cloud. Except it’s not exactly a cloud. It’s too solid and its oval shape too sculpted to be just a random mass of water droplets. Of course, if it was said mass of water particles he would have surely continued falling. Instead, as he looks down, he notices what it is exactly he’s laying on._

_It’s rice. A single grain of rice millions of times its usual size. A humongous grain of rice the size of a submarine. And at the very end of the rice, Izaya can see something…something pink? Is that? It couldn’t be. A giant strip of fatty tuna in the shape of a slide, a long spiral that keeps descending and descending into complete darkness. He claps his hands together joyously. What could be waiting for him at the bottom?_

_Curiosity overtakes him as he throws himself down on his stomach and slides down, all the way to the very bottom. He gets his answer, for who is there to greet him? Why, it’s all his lovely humans with their arms outstretched, welcoming him in. He laughs as their chants echo around him._

_“Izaya-sama, Izaya-sama."_

_Their cries are music to Izaya’s ears. Oh how good it feels to be acknowledged, to be loved, to have all these people gather around him. He makes his way through the crowd, accepting each bit of praise he can get, from one end of the room to the other._

_Being their God, he has to see to it that he meets each and every one of his subjects personally. He swims through the sea of people and passes by a few familiar faces. Namie, Dotachin and his crew, his favorite highschooler he loves to mess with… but there’s one face that hasn’t appeared yet, no matter how hard Izaya looks._

_He whips his head around desperately, searching for his tall frame amidst the crowd, but he can’t find him. He thinks that he’s so close, so close, but when he turns his head once again, the only person standing in front of him is definitely not who he’d been searching for._

_Shinra._

_He opens his mouth to speak._

_“What did you expect, Orihara-kun? The one you are looking for is not human.”_

\---

While Izaya acknowledges that the dream he had after seeing Shizuo was weird, it still hardly counted as a nightmare considering the fact that it included all this favorite things: namely, ootoro and humans. The dreams that follow the next few nights are equally as mild and don’t leave him jolting awake in the middle of the night, shivering and gasping for air. For once, he feels as if he can actually get some proper work done and he manages to accomplish more in the first three days after encountering Shizuo than he had in the entirety of the week being stuck with those nightmares.

So after a long day of stirring up trouble, Izaya finds comfort in laying in his bed, curled up under his blanket and enjoying the things he used to. In this case, it’s a cup of tea on his bedside table and an interesting book just under his fingertips: 人間失格, or simply _No longer Human_ by Dazai, Osamu.

However, as interesting as the prospect of a double suicide mentioned in the book is to him, before long, Izaya finds his eyes coming to a close as he drifts off into his dreamland. This time, he believes that those past nightmares of overpowered children and broken bones are long gone.

But boy, how wrong he is.

_He’s a kid again, in the same body as before. This time, his arm is already in a cast, meaning he is still recovering from a previous injury. He walks next to another child, just a few years younger than him. It’s the pudding thief again. His brother._

_They’re walking from school that day and he happens to catch the sweet smell of freshly baked bread. He turns his head towards the delicious aroma and sees a woman, much older than he is with dark brown hair and warm brown eyes. She calls out to them with two bottles of milk in her hands. She’s pretty, and her voice is kind._

_“For your bones, so that you can get stronger”… she says something along those lines as she offers them the bottles of milk. He takes one, his fingers lightly brushing against hers. A light flush dusts his cherubic cheeks and his chest starts to feel warm, light. She’s not scared of him. On the contrary, her smile is the brightest anyone had even given him._

_Every day, he walks the same way, anticipating his encounter with that woman. And every day, her radiant smile lights up his world as she hands him a fresh bottle of milk._

_Until one day, everything changes._

_He’s walking home in the same way, the sun already setting in the horizon. He’s eating a lollipop and enjoying the sweet taste of strawberry on his tongue. His eyes settle on the bakery again, ready to see the same woman with her cheerful attitude greeting him as always._

_Except the scene unfolding in front of him is different. The sounds of the railway crossing echo in the distance as he stares, eyes wide open and gaze fixated on the woman he holds in such high regard._

_Three men are next to her, pulling and tugging at her arm and shouting inaudible words he can’t quite pick up on. Rather, he can barely register anything except the vibrant ringing in his ears. The lollipop stick in his hand snaps and falls to the ground._

_And he, too, snaps._

_Before he’s fully aware of what had transpired, he’s standing in the middle of the now devastated bakery, debris all around him and the three men laying unconscious on the ground. As for the woman, the woman he admired oh so deeply… She, too, lays there, body completely still with a pile of rubble atop of her. He’s the only one still standing, clenching his tiny fists tightly with tears running down his cheeks and wondering why… just why?_

_Why is it that the strength he possesses is only good for hurting others, as opposed to saving those he cherishes?_

_\----_

Izaya wakes up almost all too quickly, feeling instantly irritated. Wonderful, simply great. Just when he’d thought he’d been freed from the nightmares, here they come, surfacing again. His annoyance quickly turns to a full blown fury as rage boils in the pit of his stomach; a rage that mirrors the wrath he feels in his dreams all too perfectly. Surely, there must be a reason for it.

_Surely…_ he thinks as he looks down and sees the book he’d fallen asleep with while reading. He narrows his eyes.

_It’s the book’s fault,_ he thinks. _It has to be the fucking book that caused all this._

He picks up the book in disdain, holding it at a distance in between his index finger and thumb as if it were a washed up, rotten, smelly old shoe.

His once loved possession suddenly churns his stomach with an ugly, sick feeling.

The anger. The fucking anger is back again, making his whole body feel hot, as if he’s on fire. It’s like he isn’t even aware of his own actions because in the next moment he’s huffing on the bed with the pages from the book crumbled up in his clenched fists. And then, he throws what remains of the book as hard as he can, sending the object flying across his bedroom only to crash into the wall with a small thud.

Boy, is he fucking angry. Angry that the book didn’t make a hole in the wall and fly out of existence _._

_It’s the damn books,_ he thinks as he throws the suffocating covers off himself and marches downstairs in his sleeping attire, not even bothering to change.

_All the damn books._

He stomps over to his bookshelf with his hands crossed across his chest.

_All the damn fucking books._

Unfolding his hands, he picks out one random book and rips it right out of its cozy place in between the others, before spinning around and hurtling it across the room. He then picks up another, and another, and proceeds to throw them in various directions. Some of them he lingers on, and goes as far as to rip the pages out before throwing them up in the air like confetti.

But it’s not enough.

Goddammit, it’s not enough.

No, he needs to think bigger, bolder. He grabs onto the bookshelf with all his might and starts pulling. His grip is a bit loose since he can’t exactly curl his pinky around the dark wood, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. He puts all of his body into it, attempting to lift the bookshelf up. It’s an unrealistic expectation, but now, more than anything, he wants to throw the entire damned thing across the room and out his windows. Obviously, he’s too weak to do that. But it doesn’t stop him from trying.

He’s so focused on destroying all the books that he hardly even acknowledges Namie walking in through his front door. She enters, only to see him huffing and puffing and attempting to lift a bookshelf in only a t-shirt and his underwear. She drops her bag to the ground, her mouth hanging agape.

“I knew you had a few too many loose screws in your head, but this is pushing the limit. Just what in the _hell_ are you doing _this_ time?” she breathes out as her eyes shift from Izaya to the pile of papers and books on the floor, and back to Izaya.

“Isn’t it obvious, Namie-san? I’m trying to _kill_ all these books,” he wheezes out in response as he strains against the bookshelf. With an irritated grunt, Namie marches over to him and slides her arms around his waist, holding him tightly as she pulls on his thin body, attempting to rip him away from the bookshelf before he seriously injures himself.

“The only thing you’re going to kill is yourself if you keep acting like this. Besides, I don’t want to have to clean up after _yet another_ one of your messes!” Despite her protests, Izaya isn’t about to relent in his pursuit to destroy all of his literature.

“No! I’m going to kill all of these books, and I’ll kill you too if you don’t. Let. Me. Go!” he screams like a child throwing a tantrum just as Namie manages to pluck him off the bookshelf. Now having lost his grip, Izaya resorts to swatting at her arms and trying to dig his fingernails through the fabric of her white coat.

“Izaya, NO!” she screams as his movements become more erratic, like a rabid cat on a rampage. All too suddenly, Izaya’s fingernails do pierce the exposed skin of Namie’s hand, drawing a small amount of blood. At this point, Namie has had enough. She drags him to the couch despite his wailing and throws him down rather violently onto the sleek, black cushions. It’s rather easy to do, since he doesn’t weigh all that much. She then proceeds to sit on his stomach and force his arms down, keeping them in place under her calves. 

“Get. It. Together,” she growls through gritted teeth, just as she brings her hand up high, before she bringing it back down with all her might against Izaya’s face. A sickening smack echoes through the room as her palm connects with his cheek, forcing his head to turn with the force of her slap.

Deep down she probably realizes that she shouldn’t have done this, but Izaya’s actions have been far too baffling and irrational lately. She’s tired of his antics, if he is doing this on purpose. And if he’s not? Well, hopefully this will snap him out of it. It seems that the latter is true, because not long after, he turns to her with a look of pure confusion splayed across his facial features.

“Namie-san, what are you doing? Is this some new form of sexual harassment?” he asks. He’s calm now and doesn’t struggle against her tight hold anymore. She immediately gets off of him and proceeds to straighten her skirt, releasing her hold and allowing him to rub his now reddening cheek.

“If anyone is harassing anyone here, it’s you harassing me with your weird behaviors,” she sniffs as she crosses her arms and looks at him in disdain. Yet Izaya is perplexed by her actions. His mind feels slightly fuzzy. He shakes his head before bringing his hand up from his cheek to his forehead, trying to rub the aches away.

  
“I don’t-… What?“ he starts. Her expression softens and for a moment, Izaya gets the impression from her that she’s genuinely concerned.

“Just now… you were trying to throw the bookshelf? You even scratched me?” She explains as she shows him her injury, the bleeding having now stopped. He stares at the red line spanning from the base of her thumb to the start of her wrist, dumbfounded at the fact that he had unknowingly caused harm to her. Even when he did tease her, he never went far enough as to injure her in any way.

“Ah… I’m…sorry. I didn’t intend to hurt you,” he says, his voice somewhat quiet and a little shy. This whole ordeal is ridiculous. At first he’s freaking out, then he’s fine, then he’s disassociating, then he’s fine again, and then it all collapses around him. Like a rollercoaster, going up and down and up and down, but each down is just another dip in Izaya’s own sanity.

“Do you…need help with that?” he finally asks her, and she looks genuinely taken about by his kind gesture.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it,” she mutters her reply.

“Moreover, what’s happening with _you_?”

Izaya scowls, turning away from her. He could very well lie, but what good would that do?

“I- I don’t know,” he answers as he brings his legs up and holds his knees against his chest. His eyebrows come together as he tries to process the situation. He hates not knowing. He needs answers, and he thinks he might be able to find those answers with just enough digging.

He turns his attention back to Namie.

“Could you get me some tea? I have a call to make,” he says. He can’t take it anymore. He truly can’t. The sleepless nights, the nightmares, the temper tantrums coming out of nowhere. It all inhibits his ability to live his best, self serving life.

All this shit started when Shinra gave him those pills. The first burst of anger being the only exception, but other than that, the nightmares appeared right after Izaya had taken the pills. And although he’d no longer been taking them, Izaya thinks that maybe, just maybe, if all this shit started with Shinra, then it should just as well end with Shinra. It’s all the shitty doctor’s fault, it must be. It’s something in those pills making him experience all these misfortunes.

Sighing, he takes out his phone and dials Shinra’s number. He hopes this time the asshole will actually answer.

“Tea with two spoons of sugar, by the way,” Izaya adds quickly for Namie to hear, just as Shinra answers the phone. 


	6. Look at That, It’s the Fan Fic Summary Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for supporting this story ;-;  
> If you like it, drop a kudos, bookmark, or comment. It always makes me so happy to see that people actually like my weird and random writing~  
> Also as an update since the last chapter, I made the story have an M rating for now because it's going to be a long time before the story gets anywhere sexy?  
> Kind of a spoiler maybe? but a fair warning? This story IS going to be long haha I have 60k words written up for it right now and it's not even finished yet. Just a long and disastrous journey of self discovery and overcoming denial. 
> 
> Tags for this chapter:  
> \- Fourth wall breaks  
> \- Shinra is low key but actually high key a shitty friend  
> \- I swear Izaya definitely is not pregnant  
> \- So dialogue heavy I can't even

An hour after his call with Shinra and Izaya is sitting at said doctor’s dining room table. Shinra is off preparing the tea, so Izaya absentmindedly starts fiddling with his switch blade, anxiously flipping it open and close while directing his gaze at the numerous decorations littering Shinra’s apartment; festive lights, ornaments, and a little Christmas tree perched right on top of the TV cabinet. Celty is currently out on a job and wouldn’t be coming back until later, leaving Izaya alone with the perverse doctor for today. Which is good. Izaya prefers it that way.

“So tell me, what exactly is bothering you? Your hand?” Shinra asks as he comes out of the kitchen and places a small teacup in front of Izaya. The informant merely lays the blade on the table and starts trailing his finger along the outer rim of the cup just as absentmindedly as he’d been playing with the knife. His hand is fine now, for the most part. Despite looking so frail, Izaya does heal relatively quickly and he doesn’t need to keep the splint on anymore.

“No, that’s not it,” he answers as he lifts the cup and takes a tentative sip of the tea, only to scrunch up his nose in disdain. It’s far too bitter for him. A month ago he wouldn’t have even considered adding sugar to the most bitter and strongest of teas, but now…?

“Sugar,” he ends up saying. Shinra gives him a skeptical look as he sits down across from him at the dining room table.

“Sugar is bothering you?” Shinra questions and Izaya sighs in annoyance.

“No. I mean, for the tea.”

“Oh,” is all Shinra can say as he gets up from his seat and goes back to the kitchen for a sugar bowl.

“Since when do you add sugar?” he calls out as he comes back to the table and sets the bowl down in front of Izaya.

“Since when do you celebrate Christmas?” Izaya snaps back as he throws in two spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and stirs in the sweet grains. Then, he tries the tea again, and this time, he’s much more content with the taste of the liquid.

“Ah this? It was Celty’s idea, actually. We thought it would be nice,” Shinra explains and Izaya nods in understanding as he picks up his knife, only to fiddle with it again.

“So what seems to be the problem?” the doctor inquires once more.

“Apparently those pills of yours,” Izaya gives his bleak answer.

“Really? How so? Are you experiencing any negative side effects?”

_Yea, like you wouldn’t believe._

“What the hell was in them in the first place? Ever since I started taking them, all I’ve been experiencing is weird nightmares, restless nights, uncontrollable bouts of anger, momentary blackouts, and sugar cravings like you wouldn’t believe,” Izaya explains and Shinra nods his head along, as if in understanding.

“Ah, I see, I see,” the doctor says.

“Are you sure you’re not just pregnant?”

Izaya stabs his knife straight into Shinra’s table.

“Am I sure if I’m not- Do I _look_ like a fucking woman to you?” he screeches, standing up from his seat to tower over Shinra with a menacing expression. The doctor remains unfazed, and even gives a small chuckle as if the conversation between them really is that amusing as opposed to something that was making Izaya slowly become borderline unstable.

“Well, you do have a very effeminate face and narrow shoulders,” Shinra muses as he looks Izaya up and down, and Izaya suddenly feels very uncomfortable, as if his body was on full display for the world to see. He quickly sits back down and adjusts his coat to cover his torso.

“Stop screwing around. Your pills did something to me so now you have to go and fix it,” Izaya huffs.

“How long have you been taking them then? The pills?”

“I took them for four days after you gave them to me, then stopped.”

“So what makes you think they are causing all your issues when you know any remains would have left your system by now?” Shinra asks calmly, and Izaya feels slightly taken aback. It’s a logical question to ask, but Izaya is too far in denial to think of any other explanation. It’s the only one he is able to make sense of, unless Shinra can come up with a better reason for all his ailments. He doesn’t like feeling like he lacks control. At the current moment, he very much lacks control, and will do anything he can to regain that power.

“There’s a reason for everything, so why don’t you find me a better explanation if it’s not the pills,” Izaya retorts.

“Well…if you’re not pregnant…maybe you’re going through menopause?’ Shinra asks with a light sarcasm to his voice, and Izaya’s eye visibly twitches.

“Shinra I swear…do you _want_ to die?” Izaya spits out with a low growl in his throat. He’s really starting to lose patience with all these little jokes.

“Only if I get to die wrapped up in Celty’s embrace. But seeing as she isn’t here, I think I’ll pass on your offer,” the doctor answers with a slightly creepy smile as he thinks about his one true beloved. Great, now not only does Izaya feel irritated, he feels sick to his stomach too. He grimaces at the thought, a collection of memories appearing in his head of all the intimate scenes he’s had to witness between his friend and his weird girlfriend over the years.

“Disgusting,” Izaya mutters under his breath and adds in some quiet insults about a shitty doctor with an even shittier sense of humor as he takes another sip of his tea. Shinra then takes on a more serious expression. He folds his hands together and rests his elbows on the table before leaning in with his chin propped on his hands.

“Orihara-kun, have you ever considered that you might be depressed?”

Izaya chokes on his tea and spills it out of his mouth and onto the table.

“That’s an even worse joke than the one about me being pregnant,” Izaya spits out in between coughs as he tries to expel the burning liquid from his lungs. As soon as he can breathe normally again, he wipes the drops of warm liquid falling off his chin with the back of his palm. Yet this time, Shinra’s expression doesn’t change. It stays just as morbid and solemn as when he’d first asked him.

“I’m not joking. Think about it carefully. You isolate yourself from others, keep your distance, never open up. You willingly seek out danger through the form of starting fights with Shizuo-“

“Hey, I am _not_ the one starting fights with him,” Izaya briefly cuts in with a huff as he crosses his arms over his chest. Shinra chooses to ignore the rude interruption and proceeds talking.

“Now you’re having mood swings, can’t sleep at night, your appetite has changed… You’re becoming more and more unstable by the minute. Even now, you’ve been irritated ever since you walked though my door,” Shinra finishes as calmly as he can, as if threading on a very fine line. As if one wrong word and Izaya might just snap.

Izaya just rolls his eyes and avoids eye contact, preferring to instead focus on his tea. As he sips it again, he notices it takes on a very bitter taste despite being so sweet, and all of a sudden his stomach begins to twist and turn uncomfortably. _Must be the sugar_. Even if he is craving sweets, his body is probably not used to taking in this much sugar on a daily basis.

“Wow Shinra, are you a psychologist now as well? Where did you get your degree? The University of Complete and Utter _Bullshit_? I didn’t think you were at _all_ qualified to make such _baseless_ assumptions,” Izaya scoffs with heavy sarcasm. Shinra gives him an awkward laugh.

“No, I’m just a …concerned friend,” he trails and Izaya narrows his eyes, sinking further back in his seat as if to keep his distance.

“Some concerned friend who hung up on me when I was in the hospital,” he mutters under his breath, but still loud enough for Shinra to hear and get worked up about.

“Are you still mad about that? It was a long time ago! It was one time! That was then, and this is now… I’m serious when I say I’m worried.” Shinra’s words almost feel genuine.

Almost.

“Yea, well. I studied psychology so I would know if I was depressed. And I’m not…so there,” Izaya pouts, shifting his gaze once again. Shinra doesn’t seem all too convinced but still gives in, not wanting to press the matter further.

“Fine, if you say so. Let’s drop it. Why don’t you tell me more about all these dreams, what are they like. The cravings et cetera. Start from the _very_ beginning, in as much detail as you can and I’ll try to help you somehow,” Shinra inquires, so Izaya decides to tell him…from the very start with his first emotional breakdown, right down to his latest emotional breakdown he’d experienced just hours ago. Although he does willfully omit the parts pertaining to Shizuo and all the weird touching because he doesn’t necessarily think it would be connected. Or rather, he’s too embarrassed to admit such a thing.

“Alright, so you say you had these almost every night but then they briefly stopped for a few days, right? Can you remember if anything out of the ordinary happened on the day before they stopped?” Shinra asks curiously.

“I don’t know. Define out of the ordinary, because around here, there’s something unordinary happening every day. Case point, your freaky headless girlfriend,” Izaya says casually, not even registering the fact that he’d inadvertently insulted Shinra’s darling Dullahan. Shinra puts on a smile, but definitely not a happy one. A creepy one that just screams “say that again and I’ll cut off all your limbs in your sleep”.

“If you’re going to insult Celty in my presence you might as well just leave now,” he says lowly, his voice dropping significantly lower than his usual cheery disposition. Izaya holds up his hands defensively.

“Fine, fine, I won’t. Just…help me out here? What should I be looking for?” Izaya asks desperately and Shinra returns to looking only mildly creepy as opposed to full blown creepy, which is not even that much of an improvement.

“Anything at all that might be strange or unusual, something that doesn’t happen every day.”

So Izaya thinks long and hard, and the first thing that just happens to pop into his mind is, of course, none other than: Shizuo. He furrows his eyebrows, annoyed. But he supposes perhaps Shizuo’s visit had been a little strange.

“I guess….but…I don’t know, it’s not that strange but Shizu-chan came to Shinjuku the other day, and he kind of seemed confused as to why he was there in the first place. I mean obviously, I wouldn’t hold it past him to get confused like that with his pea sized brain and all-“

“Insulting Shizuo-kun in my presence is also a no-go, Orihara-kun” Shinra quickly cuts him off and Izaya groans in aggravation.

“So he was _confused_ for reasons _unknown_ , because the reason for his confusion _couldn’t possibly_ have been anything to do with his _brain_ since it is _normal sized_ …” he ‘corrects’ himself before continuing.

“And then we talked, he threw some things at me, I threw some things at him, you know, just the usual banter and all that,” Izaya says as he recalls the memory, a small smile tugging at the edges of his lips as the image of Shizuo swatting eggs with a parking signs pops up in his head.

“Aha, I see, and you stopped having the dreams after that?” Shinra asks while rubbing his chin with his index finger. Izaya nods his head.

“Yea, for a few days.”

All too suddenly, Shinra slams his hands against the table and stands up, leaving Izaya to raise a quizzical eyebrow at him. Well, perhaps the underground doctor has finally snapped after years of illegal business practices.

“And did you touch? At all?”

Again, even more confusion than before, accompanied by an annoyed scowl and a light… heat rising up to his cheeks?

“What kind of question is that? Just where in the _hell_ was I supposed to be touching him?” Izaya asks and yes, his cheeks definitely _do_ feel warm. It’s only because it’s embarrassing. He thought an embarrassing thought that was gross and he shouldn’t be thinking about.

“Any. Like, a brush of the shoulders, even a hit would do.”

“I guess? I walked straight into him so my head definitely touched his chest,” Izaya answers, shifting uncomfortably while Shinra starts pacing around the room, rubbing his chin and contemplating his thoughts once again.

“Well, I do have another theory, but it’s a little bit farfetched. And you are definitely not going to like it,” Shinra finally states a little nervously, which means that whatever he has on his mind is far worse than his previous three jokes.

“Shoot,” Izaya says and flicks his wrist in Shinra’s direction.

“Have you ever heard of the concept of soulmates?” the doctor asks after a slight pause. Izaya looks at him with skepticism. What do soulmates have to do with his predicament?

“As a fictitious concept, yes. It’s quite popular in media, isn’t it? This overly romantic and delusional concept that has people captivated with this idea of true love… yea, it’s ridiculous but I’m familiar with it,” Izaya gives his answer while thinking of his poor, precious confused and deluded little humans. Such instances are very amusing to watch as people convince themselves to stay in otherwise broken and toxic relationships because they think they have something special. Because they _want_ to feel special. Obviously, Izaya doesn’t believe in such myths himself. To think that it could actually be a real phenomenon is simply ludicrous.

“So…I’m kind of going to go on a limb here but… It may be, just may be slightly, possibly, potentially, with a small likelihood that you…and Shizuo-kun could be s-“ Izaya abruptly cuts Shinra off before he can finish speaking with very loud, very obnoxious intense laughter. He already knows where this is going and he does _not_ want to hear the rest of that sentence. If anything, it’s completely hilarious. _Him?_ And _Shizuo?_ That _protozoan?_ Such a thought truly is nothing but comical. If such a thing as soulmates even exist in the first place. Which, it definitely doesn’t.

“Funny joke, Shinra. Really, out of all your little jokes, that one has got the be the only one that is genuinely humorous. Soulmates? Real? AHAHA and _me_? With that _brute?_ You’ve outdone yourself, really,” Izaya chokes out in between bouts of laughs. Just the thought is enough to bring back the uneasy feeling in his stomach. It has to be due to utter disgust, that’s the only explanation for him feeling unwell. That, and early onset of the hyperglycemic coma from two chapters ago.

“I told you, you wouldn’t like it. But soulmates do exist. There’s been a few studies done on the subject over the last few years. The theory is that only about five percent of the population experience such a thing. And not just in the way that ‘oh I _think_ we are soulmates’ type of thing. No, I’m talking about real, hard facts here. People having actual adverse reactions to not being with their soulmate that can range from anything really. Nausea, headaches, withdrawal symptoms, taking on their soulmates favorite hobbies, food preferences. What makes it more difficult to measure is that sometimes people who do have a soulmate don’t always get to meet them. If they have very minimal contact with their soulmate, the bond is weaker so the effects will be slightly weaker. It’s really different for everyone depending on the intensity of the relationship and the feelings involved and-“

Izaya just looks at him blankly, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Shinra, speak English why don’t you? I can’t understand a damn thing you’re saying,” he says flatly, and Shinra clears his throat, a little embarrassed by his overenthusiastic spiel.

“Ehem, don’t you mean speak Japanese?” He corrects Izaya, but Izaya denies that statement.

“No, I mean speak _English_ , because maybe then you will actually start to make some sense. What you’re saying is beyond ridiculous.”

The only thing Shinra can do is sigh.

“Look, I understand…you might be in shock about it but… _if_ it is a soul bond then it would explain why your body is reacting a certain way…like craving very Shizuo-kun typical foods, or experiencing very Shizuo-kun-esque momentary rage filled black outs…it’s like your body’s way of telling you that you should be, theoretically, with Shizuo-kun,” Shinra explains sheepishly while rubbing the back of his head.

“The only thing my body is telling me right now is that I will _kill you_ if you don’t knock it off with the stupid jokes already. I came here for help…not for you to…to _make fun of me_ ,” Izaya deflects while pointing the tip of his knife at Shinra. Deep down, he’s starting to feel somewhat hurt. He’s genuinely struggling with something and here Shinra is, being a shitty friend as always, taking the situation lightly. After Izaya had gone through all the trouble of revealing his psychological pains to Shinra, the doctor had gone and made such false claims about him. Maybe he should have just gone to see Kyouhei instead, even if Izaya _would_ have to deal with the rest of his annoying friends in that ridiculous little van of theirs… at least Kyouhei doesn’t make fun of him.

For a moment, Shinra looks as if he wants to reach out to him and give him a friendly pat. He stops midway with his hand outstretched and promptly drops it.

“I’m not making fun. Soulmates are…pretty serious business. It’s a worldwide phenomenon. You can look this all up online, there’s hundreds of papers on the topic, just have a look. It won’t cost you anything except a bit of reading time,” Shinra reasons with him. If that’s the way he wants to play this, then fine. Izaya will just play along for now, speaking purely hypothetically.

“ _If_ what you say is true… _If…_ Then why now? Why is this all happening now? Why not years ago? Why not when we first met? Shizu-chan has _always_ hated me from the very beginning. Surely if we are these… soulmates or whatever, shouldn’t we-“ For a moment, Izaya almost says ‘dating by now’, but he stops himself. Just the thought itself makes his throat constrict, leaving him unable to utter out such words.

“-Resolved our differences years ago?” he ends up saying.

“I’m no expert, but the most probable case scenario is that something must have happened between you two. Something that would trigger it…for example, perhaps you developed some sort of unreciprocated feelings for Shizuo-kun…” Shinra muses and Izaya stands up all too abruptly, his eyes wide and staring Shinra down as if he truly was just an insane practitioner.

“What feelings? I don’t have any feelings for that monster except deep, immense hatred.” Izaya screeches. _Him?_ Orihara Izaya having _feelings_ towards that… that _thing?_ Any second now and Izaya wonders if he should just up and leave. His body is already tense, his mind in shambles, he doesn’t need to have such texts thrown at him, knocking him even further off balance. 

“Or perhaps it’s the other way around and Shizuo-kun has developed some feelings for Orihara-kun,” Shinra continues and Izaya takes a step back, nearly stumbling over his chair. His eyes are wide, and pupils dilated from shock.

“Impossible,” he stutters out.

No way. There could never, ever be a possibility that Shizuo felt anything but hatred for Izaya. To say such a thing would mean that Shizuo is capable of love in the first place, which would mean Shizuo has a human quality. And if Shizuo is all too human, then Izaya would be in his own state of cognitive dissonance in which he would _have_ to come to love Shizuo, thereby making his claim of loving humanity fully realized. But Izaya could never come to love to Shizuo, and Shizuo could never come to love him. Therefore, Izaya stays in the clear, continuing to believe that Shizuo is just a monster incapable of love.

Unless, he is.

He thinks back to that day a few weeks ago and his lips fall into a thin line, the image of Vorona clinging onto Shizuo’s arm becoming fresh once again in his mind.

“Shizu-chan… does love someone, and it is definitely not me,” he says, somewhat dejected as he turns away from Shinra and walks to the kitchen island. Still unable to face the doctor, he places his shaking hands against the counter, trying to steady himself as he’s hit with another wave of heavy emotions.

“He…started dating some fucking Russian _hooker_ so you know, maybe, just _maybe,_ if he loves her so damn much, then maybe his _love_ can just _break_ this stupid soul bond, if such a thing exists, and we can all go back to living our normal lives,” Izaya sneers, surprising even himself with how angry his voice sounds. A part of him may just be hoping for that, but the other part of him, the part that he would never admit to, wants to take back everything he just said.

Because Shizuo simply _cannot_ love anyone else.

“You say that as you stab at my cutting board,” Shinra hums and, as Izaya looks down, he notices that has indeed shifted from leaning against the counter to stabbing his knife through a wooden cutting board for the entirety of his speech. He stops his actions promptly and sighs deeply before putting knife back in his pocket. Just as he does so, a new devilish idea creeps up in his mind. His foul mood is immediately replaced with a pleasant feeling of anticipation.

“Say, hypothetically, I entertain this preposterous idea of yours. If it’s perhaps that Shizu-chan loving some woman is the cause of all this, then say, _hypothetically¸_ all I would have to do…is get rid of that woman?” Izaya says in a falsely innocent way that comes across as nothing but scheming

“Err, define…’get rid of’.”

To which, Izaya smirks, already giddy about the thought.

“You know…dispose of… through any means necessary,” he muses as he walks back to the dining room and leans on the table.

“Hmm, well. That wouldn’t be such a good idea. You could potentially ruin your relationship with Shizuo even further which would mean… even worse side effects for you. Or better yet, he might just end up deciding to finally kill you without knowing about the repercussions,” Shinra explains.

“Great, so all I have to do is kill Shizu-chan first and problem goes away~” Izaya laughs and does a little twirl before planting his butt back into his seat.

“Orihara-kun, you are _not_ going to kill Shizuo-kun,” Shinra scolds him sternly while waving his finger at him, as if he were a kid and the doctor was telling him off for doing something bad. And just like a rebellious kid, Izaya continues to not give a damn.

“Why not? What could possibly happen? No more Shizu-chan equals no more soul mates. And if he dies, he won’t be coming in to interfere with my business all the time. It’s like killing two birds with one stone.”

He says that and his euphoric rush should only be heightened by the thought. Yet the opposite happens. Suddenly, he gets an uneasy feeling in his stomach. It’s a strange pain that twists and turns, making him feel slightly sick and in need of throwing up. The pain radiates up to his chest, squeezing and clutching his heart, making his ribcage feel too tight. Then his head, as he feels an oncoming migraine. Desperately, he closes his eyes and leans forward on the table, clutching his temples. Lack of sleep, that’s what he decides to attribute this to sudden onset of pain to.

“There’s your answer, apparently. Your body won’t even let you _think_ about doing such a thing, let alone doing it. Because if you did, you would feel immeasurable pain akin to ripping out your own heart. Killing Shizuo-kun would make you lifeless, you wouldn’t even be able to function properly without constantly feeling as if a part of yourself is missing. Killing Shizuo-kun would be like killing a part of yourself.”

Izaya takes in a shaky breath and waits for the pain to subside.

“ _Hypothetically_ , if all of this is real. Then it would be bad. But it’s not. It’s not real, so I _have to_ ,” he groans, the pain only getting more intense until he’s squirming in his seat.

“Then what reason do you have for killing him if none of this is real to begin with?”

Izaya scowls, unable to think of a reply. His head is pounding intensely now, so he pushes the thought of killing Shizuo out of his mind for now. So Shinra continues talking.

“Look, I think it is very much real. I’ve always had this feeling that there was more to you two than meets the eye. I don’t even think that it’s a simple soul bond. I think it’s more like… you’re two halves of one whole. Like Yin and Yang, like darkness and light. Never one without the other. It’s not just something that will go away on its own… “

Izaya keeps on scowling, scowling until he thinks he will surely get wrinkles on his precious baby face.

“And you want to know what I think? I think you’re full of shit and I don’t even know why I came here in the first place,” Izaya says in a huff and starts pouting like an irritated child who had just had their favorite toy taken away from them.

“I think you should at least try and foster this relationship and see where it goes. How bad could it be? You could finally make up with Shizuo-kun after years of antagonizing each other.”

In that moment, something inside Izaya snaps. He feels damn irritated again, but it’s not the same blind, red hot rage as before. No, this is something different, something more sinister. Feelings of anger mixed in with something else…disdain, regret, remorse… something… something that makes his blood boil.

“So funny coming from you, considering how in high school, you did everything you could to make us hate each other… now you’re trying to bring us together? Don’t make me laugh… your jokes really are not funny,” Izaya spits out, and it seems as if he had struck a nerve with Shinra.

“You’re accusing me? I never did such a thing,” he defends. But Izaya knows his own truths. He remembers all the little instances that really solidified his and Shizuo’s hate for one another. Those sly comments Shinra would sometimes whisper in Shizuo’s ear when he believed Izaya didn’t notice, the subtle smile every time he witnessed them fighting, right down to the way he introduced them.

“And I suppose the dumb brute found out what I was up to half the time all on his own? Without any help? But no, now look at you. Trying to so hard to bring us together. Why?”

“I have my reasons…” Shinra answers after a short pause, and Izaya rolls his eyes.

“Reasons pertaining to Celty, right?” he sneers. Now that he had her, there was no need to keep Izaya all that close by. Now that Celty kept in close contact with Shizuo, Shinra’s suggestion would just be a way to ultimately benefit Shizuo. He doesn’t care about Izaya in the slightest, nor does he care about his desires.

Shinra doesn’t give an answer, solidifying Izaya’s hypothesis.

“Fuck you and your stupid theory, I’m leaving,” Izaya finally snarls and hurries to the door without so much as a goodbye.


	7. When Your Boss Has a Choking Kink… But so Do You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello~ A little announcement:  
> Soul's Refrain will be taking a short break for around two weeks or so since I want to participate in Shizaya week on tumblr, so most likely I will be posting those during that time (3-10th December)  
> But I will be returning to SR around the 11th or 12th December with a new chapter~ 
> 
> Tags for this chapter:  
> \- Exposition  
> \- Namie's choking kink  
> \- Christmas shopping  
> \- Shizu-chan IS cool

The moment Izaya comes back home, he makes a beeline for his computer. He barely gives Namie a passing glance and waves her off completely with a flick of his wrist and a quiet grunt. She doesn’t complain, nor does she question him, although she does perk her head as if expecting him to give her the verdict of his conversation with Shinra. He doesn’t. He’s not in the mood, and it seems that she picks up on this since she stays absolutely quiet. The only thing she studies him for is signs of emotional instability: will he have another meltdown or not? Luckily, he doesn’t. In fact, he tells her to take the rest of the day off, as well as the following day. No complaints there either.

She gathers her things, and before she leaves, she reminds him that she will be taking the 23rd off for the holiday, up until the New Year as per their agreement, and he informs her that it’s fine by him so long she comes in on the 22nd. Which would be three days from now. She says her goodbye to him and departs, leaving Izaya all alone with his bright and brand new computer screen. 

_Look it up on the internet my ass, I’ll look it up alright,_ he thinks as he opens up a new window, ignoring his usual chat rooms for once. He cracks his knuckles.

It’s time to get down to business.

_._._._

For two days straight, Izaya keeps his eyes glued to the monitor in front of him to the point they become sore and bloodshot, and his vision starts to blur. All he does is research this soulmate stuff, reading article after article until he feels like his brain will turn to complete mush. Some of them seem to be fakes and are relatively easy to label as such. Yet some of them come from university websites and are marked as actual thesis papers for psychology students. How he had never come across such a thing while he was still in university baffles him. He doesn’t dwell on that thought for too long though. Surely they must be from less prestigious universities. That’s the justification he comes up with.

Until he finds a peer reviewed study on his own University’s website that was published just one year after he’d already graduated. He narrows his eyes and skims through the text, picking out the most important bits of information:

[Previously thought to be a fictitious concept, the existence of soulmates has garnered significant attention over the past decade as scientists have been studying the validity of this phenomenon. In recent years, multiple studies have been conducted to assess the extremity of the worldwide incidents centered around soulmates. Before delving into the subject, one must first ask: what is a soulmate? This definition is necessary before one attempts to understand the complexity of this concept. According to Tanaka Mario and Sakamoto Luigi, two Italian-Japanese plumber-psychologists-“ ] 

Izaya stops reading for a moment. This has to be a practical joke, right? There is no way this paper has any validity to it whatsoever. Quickly, he opens up another tab and searches those two names up only to see…

He deadpans, staring at his computer screen with wide eyes. They are two real people who started out as plumbers… and fixed some leaky pipes for a lady who was considered a _princess_ , got paid a pretty penny, went to study psychology together, and specifically started researching soulmates over ten years ago.

_What are the odds?_

Izaya shakes his head in disbelief and goes back to reading the article.

[\- a soulmate is a someone with whom one has spent many lifetimes with as a friend, lover, co-worker, or partner, and to whom one is usually drawn to the most. A soulmate, in essence, is a spiritual partner that best serves as one’s ‘other half’, most commonly taking on the role of a romantic partner. A romantic relationship is not always the guaranteed default, and soulmate relationships can also be purely platonic. However, in the recent years, the term has been strictly adapted to refer to a romantic partner due to the recently discovered mental and physical symptoms associated with the soulmate phenomenon.]

Izaya rolls his eyes. He wonders who even approved this article since it just seems to get even more and more absurd its claims with each paragraph.

[Recently it has been speculated that the existence of soulmates dates back to the earliest formation of human society. Records show that…]

_Blah blah blah_

[While difficult to measure the intensity of the effects a soul bond can have on the human body…]

_Blah blah blah_

[-will have a variety of effects.] 

The article goes on to talk about specific cases of soulmates found around the world, giving examples such as a couple in France who experienced unexplainable migraines when apart, couples who claim to be able to share memories, and even extreme cases such as literally switching bodies with their soulmate. And given such bold claims, it’s no wonder Izaya has his doubts. Those doubts would be made even stronger, if not for the fact that the more he reads, the more he finds himself identifying with the article. The list of symptoms is rather extensive and includes the following:

  * Being able to hear each other’s thoughts or share thoughts
  * Being able to share or experience the same memories
  * Being able to share dreams
  * Being able to sense each other’s presence and general location 
  * Being able to feel each other’s emotions
  * Being able to share each other’s emotions, often times experiencing them without choice
  * Being able to share or feel each other’s physical sensations, mostly commonly pain and pleasure 
  * Adopting each other’s favorite hobbies / preferences / dietary choices / etc. 
  * Experiencing feelings of anxiety when apart
  * Experiencing physical pains and/or illness when apart
  * Feeling comfort, pleasure, or any unusual sensation from physical contact 
  * Having matching birthmarks and/or any other bodily marks in the same places 
  * Experiencing switching bodily features such as hair color and eye color
  * Switching bodies entirely 
  * Experiencing reduced pain from injuries when in each other’s presence 



The article also mentions that this is just a list of all possible symptoms that one may experience, but it doesn’t mean all symptoms will be experienced. Some experience one or two, others more. It all depends on the intensity of the relationship, as well as multiple other factors such as age, stage in life, and any other specific circumstances. More often than not, these symptoms tend to be displayed when the soul bond is particularly intense, but one or more of the parties involved refuses to acknowledge it. Instances where one or more of the parties involved start romantic relationships with others also generally bring out these symptoms. The longer the soulmates are apart, the worse the effects tend to be. However, upon establishing physical contact, the degree of the symptoms tend to lessen, and upon accepting each other as soulmates, the two parties generally stop experiencing symptoms all together with only mild leftover effects remaining.

There surely must be a limit to how many times Izaya can roll his eyes in one day before having them physically pop out of their sockets. All of this sounds as if someone took all of the soulmate tropes and squeezed them together into one conglomerate. But what he hates the most out of all of this is that he thinks he very well may be experiencing some of these symptoms. As a start, most of this started happening after Izaya had seen Shizuo with that deplorable woman.

Check number one: Shizuo being with someone else.

Then the touching happened – the weird warmth and tingle of electricity Izaya felt that day that he’s pretty sure he doesn’t feel when touching other people. At least, he thinks so. It’s not like he can exactly remember how touching everyone makes him feel, since he doesn’t exactly go around touching random people on a day to day basis.

For now, that’s check number two.

As for number three?

Well, the unexplainable anger and mood swings would be enough of an indication. Shizuo does tend to get angry… a lot… actually, a lot is a bit of an understatement. Izaya has witnessed his own fair share of Shizuo’s ‘temper tantrums’ and it’s safe to say that the beast truly has no control when he succumbs to the rage within.

Then comes check number four: the sweets.

Izaya doesn’t like sweet things and never has, yet Shizuo _does_. As well as dairy; both are things Izaya has been craving almost every day. Not to mention, the dreams. Izaya is more than sure now that those dreams are definitely about Shizuo, but whether or not they are memories or Shizuo’s dreams or just fabrications of his own mind, that he cannot be sure of.

Nonetheless, it’s technically check number five.

With a tired sigh, Izaya switches off his computer. All of this is far too strange and confusing for him. He doesn’t want any of it to be true, nor does he want to believe in it. Of course, being the worldwide champion of mental gymnastics, Izaya thinks that if he just tries hard enough, he will be able to disprove everything he just read.

For now, though. For now he just wants to go to sleep. His eyes hurt from staying up too long, reading about all this borderline useless information. No point in dwelling on it now, he supposes.

But if there is one thing for certain: even if he can’t disprove this theory, he will still do everything in his power to break whatever bond he and Shizuo may have. Whatever it takes, even if it means killing Shizuo and having to live with a supposedly ‘broken heart’ until the day he dies.

_._._._

After those two days of being confined to his house and spending countless hours researching and reading every article he can get his hands on about soulmates, Izaya finally takes a break to catch up on a pile of work he’s been putting off for quite some time now. For the most part, he hasn’t been experiencing any mood swings for those past few days and the sugar cravings seem to have subsided slightly, making his day to day existence somewhat more bearable. Fortunately for him, his aforementioned workload isn’t all that big, as most clients are too preoccupied with Christmas preparations.

Though unfortunately for him, researching soulmates has taken out quite some time out of his usual people stalking time. He’d been hoping to sway the flow of information around a few of his ‘game pieces’ as an early Christmas present for himself, before the Western holiday finally came and he would be flooded with the unsightly swarm of couples.

Ah, but no use dwelling on it now. Just the fact that he hadn’t had a single strange dream or fit of anger in the last 48 hours should be enough of a blessing. Namie will also be back today, so perhaps he can get his fill of teasing her as well. And he knows just the perfect way to go about it.

Ever since reading those articles, Izaya has been somewhat adamant about disproving the link between the strange symptoms listed and his own experiences. He doesn’t know if Shizuo is also experiencing the same things or not, but he can at least put one of his theories to the test, since this particular one requires help from anyone _but_ Shizuo. Specifically, he wants to try the touching thing. The last time they’d had any sort of physical contact, Izaya can distinctly remember feeling pleasantly warm with a little electric aftershock grazing his skin. But maybe Izaya had suffered some brain injury that made him have kinesthetic hallucinations that day, or that made his perception of touch different from the norm. Not like he pays specific close attention to how it feels when people are touching him, but now he thinks that perhaps he will be more attentive and see if his secretary has the same effect on him.

He spins around in his office chair, sliding around the area of his office and living room, from one end to the other, just as a child would. His chair is still new and the wheels on this one are much better than his old chair. If this is what having a new chair feels like, he thinks he should have broken the old one even long before his first temper tantrum.

_You’re late,_ he thinks as he continues to spin in his chair until he becomes positively dizzy from the vertigo. The time on his computer reads 8:05 in the morning. Five whole minutes of sliding around on the chair. Ugh, how much longer must he _wait?_ Those five minutes truly feel like eternity, especially because he’s actually anticipating Namie’s arrival that day.

Finally, his trusty helper enters through the front door, and Izaya immediately stiffens. He switches his position to one knee propping him up on the chair, while using his other leg to push himself around until he slides all the way up to her.

“Good morning, Namie-san,” he says in an upbeat tone as he leans his arms against the back rest of the chair, looking at her with a sly smile. She raises her eyebrow at him, clearly surprised by his sunny disposition.

“What are you up to?” She asks cautiously, eyeing him from top to bottom to make sure he isn’t scheming anything inappropriate or that would make her feel annoyed and/or uncomfortable. His smile just widens. She probably thinks that he is indeed up to no good, since more often than not he would be. However, this time, her assumption is completely untrue, thought that doesn’t stop Namie from making a disgusted face at the smile Izaya gives her.

“I need a favor from you,” he says with a light giggle to his voice. Ah, and there it is: the reason for his cheerful attitude. Surely, he’s sucking up to her. Trying to win her over by cautiously portraying himself in a positive light.

“I’m not taking you to a hot pot party,” she replies flatly, probably thinking back to the numerous times Izaya has begged her. Izaya tries his best to ignore her comment, since it does bring up some bitter memories of not being invited to a hotpot by his one out of two friend. Not like he cares anyway, because he definitely doesn’t. He’s completely unfazed by it. Pfft.

“Actually, that’s not it,” he says as Namie sets her handbag down and goes to the kitchen. He follows her in his little swivel chair, watching her intently as she pours water into the kettle, before setting it on the stove and turning on the heat.

“What I actually want from you… is for you to touch me,” he finishes. Namie stops what she’s doing for a full ten seconds or so as she processes what he just said. Then, she turns on her heel and stomps her way out of the kitchen and over to him with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed, an angry scowl on her lips. 

“First of all, that is disgusting and takes your sexual harassment to a whole different level. And secondly, the _only_ person I ever want to touch is,” here her crass demeanor changes to adopt a dreamy eyed expression.

“Seiji,” she swoons, and Izaya rolls his eyes.

“So why don’t you find someone else to make yourself less lonely? Hell, why not even go bother that monster of yours, he’ll surely be more than happy to give you enough attention,” she finishes. Izaya whimsically spins around in his chair. Oh Namie, if only you knew the reason for exactly _why_ he absolutely _cannot_ go to Shizuo with this.

“Are you done yet?” he asks. She jerks her head back, signaling her shock, before she nods her head. Izaya proceeds.

“Good, then. First of all, the only perverted one here is _you_ , Namie-san, for thinking that’s what I was asking you in the first place. Secondly, it would be pretty gross if you _did_ touch me _in that way_. What if you infect me with your incestuous desires? I would never be able to look at my sisters in the same way again,” he jokes rather crudely and shudders just at the mere thought of it. He drops the joking mood soon after, taking on a more serious demeanor.

“That’s not what I had in mind though. I’m just trying to test out a theory and need you to touch me anywhere really. Can be on the arm, forearm, shoulder, back, whatever. Doesn’t matter. Hell, you can even pretend to choke me if you’re into that. I won’t mind. Consider it as an early Christmas present,” he says slyly with a small grin because he knows she would be more swayed by such a proposal. The woman probably wants to choke him on a daily basis, so this would be fulfilling her fantasy perfectly. Namie certainly does seem tempted. She takes a step closer to him and puts her hand on the back rest of the chair, just centimeters away from where his neck is.

“And you’re fine with that?” she questions. Izaya gives her a nod of approval. The other reason he thought of the neck specifically is because of that first incident with Shizuo, when he’d felt Shizuo’s grip wrapping around his throat.

Tentatively, Namie slides her fingers until they just barely graze the sensitive skin of Izaya’s neck. She presses her palm against his airway and pushes down. He shudders slightly from her cold touch, but otherwise doesn’t derive any feelings of pleasure from this. Her hand is just cold and clammy. Nothing special there. Just her chilly touch subtly tightening, slowly robbing him of his breath. He scowls, clearly displeased.

“Namie-san, I said _pretend_ , not actually do it,” he says with a huff and she instantly drops her hand, embarrassed that she had actually gone that far. And the only reason Izaya had let her go that far is because he knows she would have never been able to go through with it to the end. Otherwise, he would have stopped her a lot sooner through any means necessary. She keeps looking blankly at him after that, pondering if there’s anything else he might require of her.

“That’s it, that’s all I wanted from you. Feel free to go back to work now,” he says and makes a shooing motion with his hand before he spins his chair around and propels himself back to his desk. Namie just goes back to the kitchen, since the kettle was now giving off a shrill whistle from the evaporating water gushing out.

“And what about you? What are you going to do?” she calls from the kitchen as she starts brewing tea.

“I’m going out~ I’m feeling generous today, so in the spirit of Christmas, I’m going to give out presents…in the form of information, of course,” he jokes as he checks a few last minute things on his computer.

“It’s not a present if you charge money for it,” Namie responds dryly as she places the tea mug on his desk.

“You’re absolutely correct Namie-san, which is why I’m having a fifty percent discount on all sales. A bargain deal, wouldn’t you say?”

“But by fifty percent, you mean full price while saying it’s half off.”

“Correct again.”

_._._._

As soon as Izaya steps outside of his apartment complex, he’s greeted with a gust of ice cold wind. At his feet there is a light blanket of snow. As of now, it’s not much, but if it keeps snowing like that for the next few days, it surely will be a white Christmas. Wrapping his coat tightly around his chest, he steps onward to the train station, making his way towards ikebukuro.

Half an hour later and he’s walking to his designated meeting point, merrily skipping around the streets. He’s also a little restless as he tries to keep a lookout for Shizuo who would come rushing in approximately right about now to foil his plans with his usual unrestrained rage. To his surprise, the blond is nowhere to be found. As such, Izaya arrives a little earlier than anticipated. Of course, he’s not crazy enough to wait outside and freeze to death in this weather. He’s far too sensitive to the cold to be idly standing around in the chill of winter.

He decides to take a look inside one of the nearby stores. It’s one of those small accessory shops that sell earrings, headbands, phone charms, and some other miscellaneous products. He’s not particularly interested in any of that but still decides to take a look around the store, mostly for appearance’s sake and to kill some time. Looking from one object to the next, Izaya eventually finds himself checking out a rack of sunglasses. Such a curious thing, why would these still be on display during this time of year? Who needs sunglasses in the winter anyway, when it’s all dark and gloomy?

Of course there is one person that does wear sunglasses all year round, at all times of the day.

Heiwajima Shizuo.

Ugh.

Izaya quietly scoffs.

Why is he thinking of that monstrosity again? He doesn’t know. He definitely doesn’t know, and he wishes he could think about anything else, except the thought just won’t leave his head. The longer he stares at the sunglasses, the more he can picture the image of Shizuo in said sunglasses; they’d look really good in them. The tint isn’t too dark and is relatively warm in color. It’s a stark contrast to the usual blue, but it would bring out the dark honey in Shizuo’s eyes really well. And these frames are also a lot more stylish than the blue ones.

Not that the blue sunglasses look particularly bad or anything. Shizuo is definitely handsome in his own rugged way, and he definitely attracts quite a lot of attention, especially from the opposite sex.

Abruptly, Izaya slaps himself on the cheeks with both hands. What the hell is he thinking about _now?_ It’s just an arbitrary fact. That’s it. Shizuo has always attracted people to him, and it’s one of the things Izaya absolutely _hates_ about the brute! Yes, that’s right. He absolutely hates Shizuo and everything to do with him.

Without thinking, Izaya impulsively grabs the glasses and takes them to the front counter. The cashier asks if he would like to have that wrapped up in a nice bag as a present, and Izaya agrees.

They’re for him.

_Not_ for Shizuo.

Totally.

A present for himself, for Christmas.

Even if Izaya knows that the glasses completely won’t suit his more feminine facial features, he still buys them. And maybe, when he finally puts them on, he can pretend to be as cool as Shizuo. Izaya snickers to himself as he exits the store. What a stupid thought. What an absolutely moronic and asinine thought.

Shizuo being cool.

Hah.

HA. HA.

_Well, Shizu-chan certainly can be impressive when pushed to his limits,_ the small voice in the back of Izaya’s head thinks, just as a black car pulls up on the street in front of him.

The door opens and Izaya gets inside. 


	8. Bartender Santa-San Gets a Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed this story ;-;  
> Me, going to reply to every single comment after all because I feel bad orz  
> I think I'm going to lose my mind with this formatting but I will just roll with it  
> before when I copy and pasted it and it was single spaced in the word doc, it still came out double spaced  
> now it came out single spaced.

Christmas. A holiday celebrated most prominently in Western societies. Although, it has gained a lot of recognition worldwide, and in recent years has come to be celebrated in Japan as well. While it is not an official work-free holiday, it is still a joyous occasion most choose to spend with their loved one.

Loved ones which Izaya clearly seems to be lacking.

He hadn’t been invited by anyone at all for any sort of Christmas celebration by any of the people he knows. His parents are away, as per usual, and his sisters had in fact directly told him to stay as far away from them as possible, in fear of him ruining their fun with each other.

It’s not like Izaya cares all that much anyway. He’s fine sitting in his apartment, all alone. It’s spacious, he has the whole place to himself, he can do whatever he wants, what’s not to love?

He sits on the couch, alone, in the darkness with nothing but his thoughts. His thoughts that somehow betray him as unwittingly, Shizuo pops up in his head again. Their last encounter had been almost three weeks ago, yet the memory is still fresh in his mind. Funnily enough, the thing he remembers most vividly is not the disgusting taste of the pudding, or the image of egg whites sliding off Shizuo’s face. It’s always that same warmth. That’s all he can think about. Frustrated, he grabs a pillow and holds it tightly in between his thighs and chest.

With a groan, he grabs the remote and mindlessly switches on the TV. Some children’s movie is on about some green monstrosity wanting to ruin Christmas for all the towns folk. The movie on the screen is a little bit like how Izaya feels at the moment. Cold, alone, and in a sour mood. Five whole minutes of trying to focus on the movie, if only to fill the silence, and Izaya finds himself getting bored all too quickly. He takes out his phone and starts scrolling through the contact list. Perhaps he could give someone a call.

Like who?

Shinra?

Maybe, but it’s unlikely he will answer since he’s probably wanting to spend time with his one true love, just like all the millions of other couples on Christmas.

Namie?

As if. She’s probably gushing over her brother and spoiling him with gifts right about now. 

So, Izaya just keeps scrolling through his phone contact list, until he finally stops with his thumb hovering over a contact labeled as “Shizu-chan <3”. He bites his bottom lip. His finger shakes slightly, alternating between nearly pressing on the name and moving it as far away from the phone screen as he can. He certainly could call Shizuo, if only to mess with him and make his Christmas just as rotten as Izaya’s is.

Or maybe he just wants someone to be thinking of him, even if it is a monster like Shizuo. He casts his gaze to the little blue gift bag sitting on his desk, in the same place he’d left it in just three days ago. Untouched and unwrapped. Then, he presses the call button.

_Ring, ring, ring._

The phone rings a few times, then goes straight to voice mail. Of course. Izaya lets out an irritated puff of air through his nose. He’s probably off celebrating with his family or something. And all of a sudden, Izaya feels as if he’s got something very bitter in his mouth. Although he is quite a fan of bitter foods, this particular sensation feels gross and makes him sick to his stomach. So, even a monster like Shizuo has people who would be around him. And what does Izaya have? An empty apartment and a Christmas dinner in the freezer Namie had been kind enough to cook for him.

Speaking of the freezer, Izaya soon finds a chill running down his spine. It’s cold, and he shivers uncomfortably as he snuggles into the pillow in his lap. It almost feels as if all the windows have suddenly been opened and the winter breeze was flowing all around his apartment, chilling him to the bone. He thought for sure he’d set the temperature to a comfortable 27 degrees Celsius, so why is it so cold?

A bath. That’s definitely what he needs. Something to make him feel warm, and safe, and comfortably enveloped in water. Still shivering, he goes to the bathroom and flips open the tap, allowing warm water to start filling the tub. He makes sure to add all different fancy products to the pouring water that would have a replenishing effect on his skin. Scented oils, bubbles, bath salts, and rose petals to top it all off. Only the best for the spoiled princess that he is.

While waiting for the bath to fill, he quickly cleans his body under a separate shower and allows the warm water to wash over him. It certainly does heat him up slightly, but as soon as he steps out into the bathroom again, he’s freezing. He doesn’t waste any more time and slips himself into the warm embrace of the flowery bath, shuddering pleasantly with a content sigh as he submerges his body in the water. It’s nice, calming, and the water slides over his body seamlessly, covering every inch apart from his head. He’s glad he had made sure to get a large bath installed that would be even comfortable enough for two people.

Finally, he allows himself to relax, the knots in his strained muscles loosening as he inhales the faint smell of rose. The past few months have been far too stressful than he thought they would be. Not only had he needed to rearrange his busy work schedule to fit in all those strange occurrences, odd mood swings, and visits to Shinra, but he also had to account for his own tiredness and fatigue caused by lack of sleep. For once, he would love to just close his eyes and actually feel rested when he wakes up. For once… just once.

And the bath does feel so nice… nice and warm. Soothing enough to wash away all his concerns, even if for a moment. He deserves to relax, he thinks, as he closes his eyes. Without ever really intending to, he dozes off into a deep state of reverie.

_When he wakes, he’s in a hospital bed with a brace around his neck and a cast on his arm and leg. He’s completely incapacitated, hardly able to move. Out of his peripherals, he can see a boy he’d seen many times before. His brother, the pudding thief. He brews some tea for him and sets it down on the table before going back to his chair and sitting down, stoic as ever. Over on the other side of his bed is a familiar face; a boy with light brown hair and glasses, his manner of speech so distinct, over exaggerating everything he says as he attempts to explain some strange biological phenomenon a child’s mind would find impossible to comprehend._

_Annoying. That’s what it is._

_“Hey, would you let me-“ Shinra begins to ask, and the annoyance he feels for the bespectacled boy reaches its breaking point. He grabs Shinra’s arm with ease and twists it, causing Shinra to cry out in pain._

_“Ow, ow, ow. That hurts! My arm bone, it hurts! Shi-“_

“-zuo.”

Izaya finishes as he jolts awake abruptly, splashing the water out of the bath as he sits up all too quickly.

“Shizuo.”

The name slips past his lips again, this time in a quiet whisper. He grips the sides of the bathtub tightly, pushing his fingers to their limits as if he’s trying to break the stone entirely. Somewhere deep down, Izaya had always known that his dreams were about Shizuo, and now he can no longer deny it entirely. And Shinra had been there too, so blatantly calling out Shizuo’s name. With a shaky sigh, Izaya pushes back his damp hair out of his face. Why is this happening to him?

By now, the water in his bath had long run cold and his fingertips have shriveled up to resemble wrinkled prunes. He drains the water and steps out, drying himself with a warm bathrobe before slipping into a set of comfortable black clothes. This time, he also slips on a maroon v-neck sweater over his usual long sleeved shirt. It’s cold again. He just wants to get warm.

After getting dressed, he checks his phone for any new notifications. His personal one, that is. He doesn’t even want to think about business right now.

The time displayed on the bright screen reads 6:32pm. It’s been two hours since he’d decided to take a bath. No new messages, no emails, no calls, nothing. Just a blank screen with no new notifications. Well, figures. The only notification that’s there is the one from his chat room, detailing the lives of his favorite high school students and how they’re out celebrating with their family. How positively adorable. How absolutely _human_ of them.

There’s also a message from [Setton] detailing some small disaster with a knocked over Christmas tree. Which… actually does make Izaya think of Shinra and possibly calling him. He’s been in his dream too, and while it could have been a random fabrication of his mind, Izaya does wonder if it was possible that all his dreams are in fact memories. Shizuo’s memories, to be exact. It’s one of those things that was listed on that soulmates list, getting in each other’s heads and all. So if he decided to entertain that thought, a simple call to Shinra could put his theory to rest; if those are memories, surely Shinra could easily confirm it, since he was in the most recent one.

He quickly finds his contact information and presses the call button, waiting for the line to connect. After a few rings, Shinra’s voice comes through from the other end.

“Hello, and happy holidays!”

Izaya breathes a sigh of relief.

“Shinra I-,” he starts, but the voice keeps on talking.

“You have reached the voicemail box of Kishitani Shinra. If you are getting this message it means that I am currently unavailable until next year since I’m off celebrating the holidays with my lovely, splendid, wonderful, beautiful, amazing- Ahhh, CELTY. No, please no! Have mercy on me-“ the line cuts off and Izaya narrows his eyes. With a low growl surfacing in the back of his throat, he tries once more only to get straight to voice mail again.

Great. Just… great.

So what other options does Izaya have? Ask Shizuo directly? As if that single-celled amoeba would sit down with him long enough to have an actual, civil conversation without trying to kill him on the spot. Yet Izaya still calls him and he wonders just why he’s calling him but it doesn’t matter at all, does it? Because he’s also not picking up, forcing Izaya’s mind to hop between different imaginary scenarios. There’s the probability that Shizuo is having a dinner with his parents, spending time with his brother, out with Tom or… Of course, there is another possibility. He could very well be with that blonde Russian again, with her hanging off his arm like some cheap ornament, parading around the busy illuminated streets of Ikebukuro. 

Izaya ends up gripping his phone so tightly that his knuckles turn white. That’s not how the world is supposed to work. Monsters like Shizuo shouldn’t get to enjoy the wonders of the holidays, much less be loved. It’s not fair…and _why_ is it still so cold in his apartment? The thermostat is set to 30 degrees, the radiators are piping hot, he’s wearing warm clothes, yet he’s still freezing.

Well, fine then. If his body refuses to cooperate with him then he will just have to accept that. If his body wants to be cold, well then he might as well actually _be_ cold _outside_ while enjoying some of the finer things in life, like looking for presents, stalking people and… trying to find something to fill the emptiness he feels inside. Additionally, he could always try to hunt Shizuo down, if only make sure his Christmas is as rotten and miserable as it can possibly get.

Yes, it’s as good a plan as any!

Instantly, Izaya grabs all his essential belongings and throws on his fur coat before going out and slamming the door shut behind him.

And then he returns, just barely one minute later, only to grab the blue gift bag sitting on his desk while repeating to himself, over and over:

_This is not for Shizu-chan. If I so happen to bump into him, I’m just going to rub it in his face that I’m way cooler than he is!_

_-.-.-.-.-_

_  
_Approximately half an hour later, Izaya steps off the train at Ikebukuro station. The air is still cold enough that his exhales come out as puffs of condensed clouds. While it’s not snowing at the current moment, the sun has long set, turning the whole city into a festive mélange of lights, decorations, and happy couples. As much as he would love to step up to someone and whisper sly ideas of doubt into an unsuspecting person’s ear, his mood is just ill fit to properly enjoy any lovely, human reactions. Rather, his desire to seek Shizuo out and ruin his Christmas is far greater than any silly ploy aimed at entertaining himself via people watching.

He still wonders what Shizuo could be up to. He refuses to believe that the protozoan is actually indulging himself in some frivolous couple activity with…that woman. So where could he be? At home? His parent’s house? Russia Sushi? Is it possible that Izaya could even find him, just like that, by complete chance? And then, his gleaming crimson eyes settle on a tall figure.

Oh. Well. This was far easier than he’d anticipated.

There Shizuo stands, just on the other side of the street. At first, Izaya has to do a double take just to confirm that it is indeed Shizuo standing there and not just some visual hallucination because this…this is just far too precious.

Izaya tries hard to resist his urge to laugh. Shizuo is still wearing the same bartender uniform as always, except this time he has a black coat on as well. Seems as if he finally does feel the full impact of the cold weather. In his hands is a sign; a wooden handle with a cardboard cutout advertising some sort of Christmas sale. But the real kicker? The reason for Izaya’s giddiness? There, atop his head, is a bright red Santa hat with the whole white trim and pompom.

Izaya quickly crosses the street, trying to keep himself hidden from Shizuo’s view. With a hand covering his mouth, he creeps up behind the Santa hat wearing debt collector until he’s close enough to whisper slyly into his ear.

“Nice hat, Shizu-chan.”

Immediately, Shizuo’s grip on the sign tightens, nearly splintering the wood in two as he turns on his heel all too quickly to face Izaya. There it is: the way Shizuo’s brow creases, the way his lips turn downwards, the way his muscles tense and his nostrils flare. The pure, unadulterated anger he must feel, contrasting with the lightness Izaya feels in his chest at the thought of Shizuo’s peaceful Christmas now being nothing more than a distant fantasy.

“Izzaaaayyaa,” Shizuo drawls, a low growl festering in the back of his throat as he stretches out the syllables of Izaya’s name.

“Yes, Shizu-chan?” Izaya retorts, making sure to say Shizuo’s name in the most delicate and intimate way he can while innocently batting his eyelashes. Then, he takes a step back and offers a small smile, which, coming from him, just oozes with condescension.

“The hell are you doing here? Thought I told you to stay out of Ikebukuro,” Shizuo snarls, taking a menacing step towards him. Izaya doesn’t back down, still keeping up that façade of a smile he’s so good at faking.

“The better question is: What are _you_ doing here? Did you waste all your money paying for damages you cause to the city that you have to take on other, unconventional part time job to pay it all off?” Izaya inquires, shoving one hand in his pocket. His expression then darkens, his giddy smile now replaced with a bitter and sarcastic one.

“Or are you saving up to... buy a gift for someone?” he adds, his own grip tightening on the little blue bag he has in his hand.

“For that…Russian girl?”

Izaya can tell he’s struck a nerve because in the next moment, Shizuo’s eyes narrow into slits and he swears he can hear a small growl coming from him.

_That’s it, get mad then. Get furious and chase me like you always do._

Yet Shizuo, very uncharacteristically, doesn’t. He just grips the wooden plank in his hands even tighter.

“I don’t see how my personal life is any of your business,” he spits out. Izaya’s demeanor falters for a moment, taken aback by the blatant lack of violence in their exchange.

“I’m just curious. Can’t I be curious about…you?”

Shizuo, being the moron that he is, clearly doesn’t buy Izaya’s whole innocent act. Well, technically he isn’t all that innocent, since his goal still had been to ruin Shizuo’s Christmas, but other than that, it’s not like he’s up to anything illegal… yet.

“You’re not curious, you’re shady. So what kind of shit are you up to this time? Going to frame me for something again? Send me to jail on Christmas as if it’s some sort of game?” Shizuo badgers him, getting all up in his face. To which, Izaya shrugs his shoulders and laughs.

“Wow, I didn’t know you think so highly of me Shizu-chan. Keep going on like that and you might just tempt me,” he muses.

“Don’t worry though, I’m not up to anything. The only shady thing around here is just this neat pair of shades,” he continues as finally raises the little blue bag in his hand before reaching inside and pulling out the pair of sunglasses he’d bought earlier. All the while, Shizuo keeps his gaze completely fixated on his slender hands, watching as Izaya waves the glasses from side to side. Izaya’s laugh only intensifies, shaking his lithe frame as he thinks of Shizuo as a dog, watching his master wiggle a juicy bone in front of his nose.

“The fuck are those for?” Shizuo asks. It’s clear he’s still extremely suspicious, his mind straining hard to come up with some convoluted theory as to what Izaya could be up to this time. Are the glasses rigged? Stolen? Have a secret camera? The possibilities are endless. It would be pretty on brand for Izaya, after all.

“They’re for me” Izaya explains, then slides them up his nose.

“Don’t they make me look cool?”

Shizuo looks at him skeptically, tilting his head to the side. And then, a Christmas miracle happens. Shizuo actually… snickers, with the corner of his lip momentarily turning upwards into an almost smile.

“Those don’t suit you at all,” he says flatly.

Izaya is shooketh.

He’s not sure whether to be surprised by Shizuo actually finding this whole thing amusing or to be offended by a blatant statement he already knows to be true. He presses his lips together and takes the glasses off before folding them close and slipping them back in the bag.

“You’re right. They would look better on you,” Izaya admits. In a very unlike Izaya manner, he grabs the handles of the bag with both hands and extends his arms out.

“I’m feeling generous, so…why don’t you take them?” he offers somewhat sheepishly, averting his gaze and completely missing that mix of shock and surprise on Shizuo’s face. He can still feel Shizuo’s gaze on him though, staring him from down from top to bottom.

“What the hell is this?” Shizuo asks skeptically, and to Izaya’s surprise, Shizuo ends up taking the bag. Their fingers brush against one another momentarily, making Izaya shudder given the slight surge or warmth he feels at his fingertips. A fleeting warmth and the feeling of sipping tea by the fire, gone just as quickly as it came, leaving him cold, alone, and desperate for more. He doesn’t reach out to Shizuo, though, and instead shoves his hands in his pockets to keep his temptation at bay.

“Consider this a p-pres- peace offering,” he stutters out. He can feel his cheeks suddenly heat up and he convinces himself it’s because of the cold. The cold weather is making his face feel flushed.

Shizuo cautiously takes the glasses out of the bag and inspects them thoroughly, looking for any hidden devices or explosives or anything else that might be cause of suspicion. He doesn’t find anything. They’re just glasses.

“Why are you giving me a presen-“

Izaya quickly cuts him off before he can finish saying the last word of his sentence.

“P-peace offering! Let’s call a truce for today, ne? Just one day without all the fighting and us wanting to kill each other…” he trails and finds himself dumbfounded by his own words. Why is he being so casual about this? Surely it’s…it’s only so Shizuo will be calm enough to answer his questions…about the dreams, and all. Shizuo sighs and gives in to his request.

“Then…thanks, I guess,” he responds dumbly. Izaya’s eyes begin to sparkle like big, bright rubies twinkling under the moonlight.

“S-seriously? You won’t attack me?” he asks, positively bewildered as Shizuo nods his head.

“Yea, let’s just say I’m also feeling generous today,” Shizuo adds and Izaya straightens his back, somewhat excited and giddy. Had this actually happened? Two Christmas miracles in one day? Shizuo smiling _and_ being compliant? Izaya finds it hard to believe, but to his surprise, Shizuo genuinely seemed to have accepted his gift as a gesture of good will. 

“Do you mind if I-?” Shizuo asks soon after as he makes a motion to throw out the bag and keep the sunglasses.

“Not at all, though as a fair warning, if you break my precious gift to you, I will kill you,” Izaya grins in response. Though he hardly means it at this point. It’s just an empty threat: one that Shizuo meets with his own empty threat.

“If you keep being so damn annoying, I’ll take back what I said and kill _you,_ you damned louse,” he scoffs as he throws out the blue bag and places the glasses in his breast side pocket. Izaya lets a small laugh slip past his lips.

“Joke~. Let’s stick to that truce, shall we?”

Shizuo nods in confirmation.  
  
Going by the terms of their agreement, Izaya should be able to just slip away, scot-free, and go on his merry way. Yet he decides to stay and keep eying Shizuo curiously, until after a few minutes, he ends up speaking again.

“So when exactly do you get off from all…this?”  
  
Shizuo looks at him quizzically.

“In half an hour…” He says, still wary, watching Izaya as he rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Mhm, and do you mind if I stay here for a while?” Izaya inquires.

“Why?”  
  
“Because…seeing you in that Santa hat is just far too amusing,” Izaya teases and can already see Shizuo getting angry again. The anger quickly dissipates as Izaya sneaks in his next comment.

“I mean, it does look good on you,” he abruptly adds before he fully realizes what he’d just said. Quickly, he bites his bottom lip and turns his gaze away. This is so stupid. Shizuo is probably giving him all kinds of strange looks by now.

“…Alright, fine. Better you stay someplace where I can keep an eye on you anyway,” Shizuo grumbles.

“But the moment I see you doing something shady-“  
  
“Yea, yea, you can feel free to kill me all you want,” Izaya interjects.

Though he makes no promises about not doing anything annoying.


	9. Shizuo's Other Part Time Job...As a Babysitter :3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags:  
> \- Izaya is the baby  
> \- Pinch his cheeks, Shizu-chan

“SAALLEEE, SALLLEE, ONLY HERE FIFTY PERCENT OFF CHRISTMAS SALE,” Izaya announces as loudly as he can in a sing song voice, throwing his hands up and waving them to attract more civilians. Ah, and how wonderful it feels; all those gazes of the people passing by, looking at him, noticing him.

He closes his eyes, content, basking in all the attention. That is, until he feels a light pat on his head, causing him to flinch slightly. He opens one eye up only to see Shizuo towering over him, glaring daggers and tapping the top of his head with the cardboard part of the sign to snap him out of his daze.

“Oi, flea. Stop it. You’re attracting _too much_ attention,” Shizuo hisses through gritted teeth. Izaya turns to face him, looking up at him with feigned innocence.

“Hm? Shizu-chan, isn’t the goal to get as much attention as possible? And with such a beautiful and enchanting individual like myself, I am sure to attract lots of it,” he muses as he turns away from Shizuo. He then leaps to a nearby lamp post with ease and props himself up on its base before proceeding grab a hold of the pole with one hand, as if he were some sort of street performer.

Shizuo isn’t convinced.

“You’re being over the top, annoying, and disturbing,” he grumbles in a low voice. Those eyes hidden behind those blue sunglasses of his reveal his frustrations, but are devoid of their usual ‘kill the flea’ bloodlust. Izaya wonders how much further he can push Shizuo before he inevitably ends up snapping and breaking their little agreement. 

“Nonsense, Shizu-chan. Humans love these sorts of things,” Izaya proclaims, almost as if he wasn’t getting strange and uncomfortable stares from nearly everyone that passes by.

“See, take for example those two girls over there.”

He points to two girls walking by with his free hand before jumping down from the lamp post and gracefully landing on his feet. He walks up to them, back straight and head held high with a small smile tugging at his lips.

“Hello,” Izaya he says just loudly enough to catch their attention.

“Might I interest you in some last minute Christmas shopping? Only today, fifty percent off. It’s not too late for a special present~” he continues lightheartedly and watches as a bright flush starts to taint one of the girl’s cheeks. Though it’s more embarrassment at being approached out of the blue like that, rather than being mesmerized by him.

“O-oh, sure,” the other says as she grabs her friend’s arm.

“I guess we can have a look, right?” she asks her friend and gives Izaya a sheepish and somewhat uncomfortable smile. Her embarrassed friend agrees, and they leave with Izaya waving them goodbye before turning back to Shizuo who, surprise, surprise, has a scowl on his face. Izaya shrugs nonchalantly.

“What? I’m helping~” he teases, throwing up his hands for emphasis and letting out a small laugh.

“Well, don’t. It’s…inappropriate,” Shizuo responds, shifting his gaze awkwardly. Izaya looks at him curiously. Inappropriate? Does Shizuo really have a problem with absolutely everything he does?

“Eh, what does it even matter? Aren’t those thirty minutes up by now?” he asks, shifting the subject. Indeed, half an hour has passed, which means Shizuo was free to go. Time sure flies by when you’re having fun, and Izaya sure was having fun, as he would be any time he had a chance to annoy Shizuo without any serious repercussions.

Shizuo acknowledges Izaya’s statement and quickly checks the time to confirm. He mumbles something under his breath and starts walking towards the store entrance. Izaya follows, and Shizuo turns his attention back to the informant in question before he has a chance to enter the store.

“Why are you still here, flea?” he asks, and Izaya shrugs his shoulders again, this time out of genuine ignorance.

“Who knows? Maybe I just want to enjoy my one day of you not violently throwing vending machines at me. And, it’s fun to annoy you,” Izaya explains and playfully sticks out his tongue like a kid. Admittedly, he does feel a little bit like a child. Like how children often tease each other and say mean things. Although, usually the teasing would be an indication of the child’s hidden fondness towards whoever they are teasing. And much like a child, Izaya ignores his own feelings of fondness towards Shizuo and attributes his giddiness to the opposite: to liking annoying Shizuo out of hate.

“Of course, if you don’t like my company, I suppose I could just run off and do all sorts of fun things. With no one to keep an eye on me, who knows what trouble I could get into, you know?” Izaya jokes and watches as Shizuo trudges over to him. Without saying a word, he grabs the hood of Izaya’s coat and tugs sharply, forcing Izaya to stumble slightly and nearly lose his balance.

“What the hell, Shizu-chan? Just what are you doing?” Izaya snaps, his excitement quickly replaced with mild annoyance as he struggles to regain his balance and stand upright on his feet. It’s a little bit difficult to do, since Shizuo just tugs even harder and forcibly pulls him inside the store, with his heels dragging across the tiled floor.

“Obviously I’m keeping an eye on you so you don’t run off and do something shady,” Shizuo barks out as Izaya continues to struggle out of his hold, swatting his arms around but to no avail – Shizuo just keeps tugging him along until the manager comes out to greet them – a woman in a gray suit, her hair tied high in a bun.

“Ah, Heiwajima-san, once again, thank you kindly for your hard work. Thanks to you, we were able to sell out most of our stock,” she thanks him and does a small bow before shifting her gaze to Izaya, still being dragged down by his hood and held in place by Shizuo’s iron grip. Instantly, Izaya freezes and stops struggling, going limp as if this was a casual thing they often did with each other. Which, in a way, wasn’t it?

“Hello~” he greets politely. The manager looks at him with a confused look on her face.

“F-friend of yours?” she inquires, pointing at Izaya with her finger. How rude, she ignored his greeting completely and ever rudely pointed at him. Izaya pouts slightly, feeling ignored and highly offended.

“Hardly. More like…I’m babysitting,” Shizuo answers, to add insult to injury. Izaya’s eyes grow wide. Just that is this? Babysitting? If anyone around here is a child, it surely is Shizuo, and not him.

“Right, says the perpetual toddler stuck in an adult body,” he retorts, and Shizuo tugs at his hood again, forcing him to sway from side to side in a very uncomfortable way.

“Quiet, the adults are talking,” Shizuo retorts, and Izaya notices a hint of, dare he say, playfulness to his voice. He’s a bit taken aback and unsure how to react in this situation. This… surely is a side to Shizuo he’s never witnessed before and it’s…not awful. Playing around with him like this, a little back and forth. Of course, if not for the fact that he has his pride slightly hurt…and is proving to indeed be the child that Shizuo called him out to be.

“Shizu-chan you have a very warped view of the definition of an adul-” He starts to talk back but barely gets to finish speaking before Shizuo tugs on his hood again, this time bringing it over his face to cover his eyes and push him down slightly, holding him in place and unable to see what’s going on, leaving him to flail his arms around wildly in panic. What the FUCK?

No, he takes that back. This is _not_ fun! It’s awful! Terrible! So annoying!

“Ah, here, please accept this, and feel free to keep the hat,” he hears the lady say and before he knows it, Shizuo finally pulls the hood off his face and starts dragging him out of the store, which prompts Izaya to start flailing around wildly again.

“Let me go, stop it! You’re so awful, I absolutely hate you so, so much! Stooopp!” He whines, and Shizuo does stop. He straightens him up and lets him stand again, but doesn’t release his hold on his hood just yet, keeping him from running away.

“What’s the matter? You said you wanted to call a truce,” he mocks him and then grasps a hold of his cheeks, grabbing them in between his index fingers and thumbs. Izaya flinches back from the pressure but can’t get away with Shizuo holding onto his face so tightly.

“So this is me not fighting you,” Shizuo concludes as Izaya starts swatting at his arms in protest. Of course, the action does very little to help his case, and instead Shizuo ends up pinching harder, pulling his cheeks every which way until they become sore and start to ache from the pain. Or at least, they _should_ hurt greatly, but Shizuo’s touch is also warm, and almost pleasant.

“S-staph i-i-idd!” He mumbles incoherently, hitting Shizuo’s arms with his clenched fists. Thought clearly to him, it’s nothing more than a tickle because Shizuo doesn’t so much as wince, even when Izaya uses his full force. Shizuo doesn’t relent and only pulls harder, and Izaya is sure he will have bruises all over his face from this if Shizuo doesn’t stop soon.

“S-seriushly, staph, y-you’wl r-ruin my faaissh,” he wails. He swears, if Shizuo keeps pulling this hard, he might actually end up crying ever so slightly from the pain. Even now, he can feel his eyes start to prickle, and the cold from the outside air isn’t doing him any favors. Shizuo finally lets go of his face, and Izaya brings up his palms to rub at his sore cheeks. Or maybe he keeps his palms there to keep the lingering traces of warmth that’s slowly starting to fade. A warmth that’s quickly replaced by light embarrassment creeping up to his face.

“Good, then maybe you don’t go around flirting with random people,” Shizuo grumbles. Izaya furrows his eyebrows, slightly confused. Is he referring to the two girls from before?

“Why does it matter? Why do you care?” he asks.

“Because, it’s annoying. You’re a manipulative asshole, that’s why. Don’t play with people’s emotions,” Shizuo gives his explanation and before Izaya can come up with some retort, or even a mental explanation why Shizuo would be so invested in the lives of strangers, the blond grabs him by the hood again and starts dragging him around, leaving Izaya to think: _Ah shit, here we go again!_

“Where are you even taking me?” Izaya asks, this time allowing himself to be swept up without much resistance, even if his coat sleeves are digging uncomfortably into his under arms. He gives in, if only to hear what Shizuo has to say for himself.

“You should be grateful, I’m _kindly_ escorting you home,” Shizuo answers.

“And you’re going to drag me like this all the way to Shinjuku?”

“Yup.”

“And then what? What will you do after?” Izaya ends up asking, and as soon as he does, his throat starts to feel a little dry, almost as if he’s nervous about the question. Shizuo shrugs his shoulders, forcing Izaya to also jolt slightly.

“Dunno, maybe go to a Christmas party.”

Suddenly Izaya feels as if all the elated feelings inside him dissipate all too quickly. He starts struggling again, his mood suddenly turning sour. So Shizuo does have some Christmas plans after all, while Izaya is just supposed to go home and sit in his quiet house, all alone? Of course, he isn’t going to let that happen. He won’t allow Shizuo to have _any_ Christmas fun. He’s not done annoying him just yet, so why shouldn’t he keep himself entertained?

Quickly, he unzips his coat. He knows he will suddenly be met with the frosty winter air, but it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make. He slips out from his coat and is immediately met with a chill running up his spine. The sweater isn’t nearly enough to keep him warm, but at least he’s able to wiggle the rest of his arms from under the sleeves, leaving Shizuo to only grip his coat and not him. Shizuo soon realizes the shift in weight he’s pulling along and sharply turns on his heel to face Izaya.

“I’m not going to let you do that,” Izaya says cautiously, taking a step back. Shizuo takes a step towards him, and Izaya takes yet another step away.

“Flea,” Shizuo threatens, his voice low and rumbling. Instead of heeding his warning, Izaya gives him one of his usual smirks.

“If you want me to come with you, then you’re going to have to catch me first,” he answers slyly and takes one more step back, then another and another. Despite the fact that his coat is now in Shizuo’s possession, Izaya doesn’t care. He turns on his heel and runs   
  
\---

Shizuo, now internally seething with rage, watches Izaya run off. His body shakes with anger as he slowly takes out his phone from his pocket and dial’s Tom’s number. After two rings, his senpai answers..

“Oh, Shizuo? Are you finished with that favor? We’re happy to wait for you, if you still want to come,” Tom greets him. Unfortunately for him, Shizuo will not, in fact, be joining the party. 

“Ah, about that. Tell Vorona and everyone else I won’t be making it. There’s a little pest I have to exterminate,” Shizuo explains through gritted teeth, his voice low. Tom quickly deduces that the pest in this context is, in fact, just Izaya. 

“Even on Christmas? Wow, you two never take a break, do you? Well, alright. I’ll let everyone know.”

Shizuo hangs up the phone, or maybe the connection just breaks since he’s gripping the phone so tightly the screen cracks. He puts the phone back in his pocket and looks at Izaya’s coat still held tightly in his clenched fist. That damned flea. Playing with him, teasing him, always having the last word, always causing trouble.

_Kill, kill, kill._

An instinct he can no longer keep at bay.

He grips the coat tighter. And then, he bolts after him, unable to hold back any longer as he shout’s Izaya’s name at the top of his lungs.

\---

Izaya doesn’t run very far initially. He’s curious to see if Shizuo will follow him in the first place. He sure hopes so, since Shizuo does have his coat which his knife and phone in its pocket. Of course, it wouldn’t be too much of a struggle for him to get a new phone, but it would be a hassle, which is why he hopes Shizuo would ever so kindly return his possessions to him.

To literally no one’s surprise, Shizuo turned into a raging beast again, stomping down the streets, plowing through everything in sight and causing quite a ruckus. _Such a hypocrite, Shizu-chan~ you preach to me about maintaining the peace…heh, it’s even in your very name, yet you go rampaging down the street, disturbing everyone around you._

_“I hate violence”_ : such phrase truly holds no meaning when the one uttering it succumbs to his own anger, chasing the very cause of his fury and leaving destruction in his wake.

Izaya keeps running, as fast as he can. Down the street, past all the tall buildings, over a fence, until his lungs burn from the heavy breaths of cold air he takes in. At least his body is able to maintain some level of warmth simply by keeping himself active, but he knows that once he stops, he’ll be once again met with a freezing chill.

He stops for a moment just across the street from a popular fast food restaurant, if only to catch his breath. Resting his palms against his knees and leaning forward, he inhales deeply, trying to ignore the burn in his lungs as his need for oxygen is far more important than any discomfort he might feel. He whips his head around, looking for Shizuo, but the monster is nowhere to be found. Has he given up? Would Izaya’s precious coat be lost forever? Izaya supposes that he might go looking for him again. He straightens and wraps his arms around his waist, shivering slightly as the adrenaline and excitement from the chase leaves his system. It hardly helps, so he wonders if he should go inside the restaurant to warm up.

Out of nowhere, a heavy force slams into him, forcing him to the ground. His back hits the solid concrete, and the impact shakes him to the bone. His body starts to ache as pain begins pulsating out from his spine. Yet he can’t focus on that because he has bigger things to worry about. He looks up only to see Shizuo’s intense honey eyes staring back at him. He’s hovers above him, with palms on either side of Izaya’s head, with Izaya’s coat still clutched tightly in one hand.

“How nice of you to bring me back my coat, Shizu-chan. I’m surprised you even kept it for this long,” Izaya stutters out rather nervously. A scowl forms on Shizuo’s lips as he lifts his arm up high and brings it back down, aiming straight at Izaya’s face. Izaya quickly turns his head and avoids the punch, very much glad that he had, since Shizuo’s fist connects with the pavement below and sends a web of cracks branching out from the impact.

“Obviously. It’s got your flee stench all over it. Makes you easier to track,” Shizuo growls, and Izaya manages a dry chuckle.

“What are you? A dog or something?” He teases. He absolutely despises dogs, so it’s fitting to make that comparison. Shizuo’s eyes narrow and he clenches his teeth together, fist once again raised and aiming straight for Izaya’s face. Izaya dodges once more, rolling his body to the side and gripping Shizuo’s other arm, fingers digging into the fabric of his black jacket. He wants to get the coat free, but Shizuo’s grip is too tight, so Izaya does the next best thing.

He fishes out his switch blade from one of the pockets and as soon as it’s open, he aims it straight at Shizuo’s forearm. Shizuo is quick to react. He bends his elbow and forces his forearm to the ground. Consequently, his body shifts and his torso presses against Izaya’s chest, sending Izaya’s heart into overdrive.

He feels as if he’d just been robbed of all the air in his lungs. Sure, Shizuo’s body is heavy, but not to the point of being suffocating. No, what’s causing his oxygen deprivation is the shock that comes from their bodily contact. Warm. Shizuo is so, so warm. Warmer than his coat, or the bath he’d taken earlier that day. Much warmer than just the little hint of contact they’d had when he’d pinched Izaya’s cheeks.

Admittedly, his first instinctual urge is to wrap his arms around Shizuo’s waist and bring himself closer. It’s silly, but it’s the first thing that pops into his mind. No. It’s not just silly. It’s nonsensical, absurd even. He quickly pushes that thought away. Clearly, Izaya doesn’t do that. Instead, he scowls and shoves at Shizuo’s chest, trying to push him away. Shizuo finally lifts himself up, stripping Izaya of that warmth and leaving him feeling empty and cold.

For a moment, they just stare, eyes locked and transfixed on each other.

Shizuo is close.

So close.

Too close.

Izaya’s gaze suddenly falls to Shizuo’s lips. He can feel his warm breath on his face. Typical… smells like cigarettes. He should be grossed out, disgusted even, yet an entirely different thought pops up into his head.

5 centimeters.

If Shizuo wanted to, all it would take is 5 centimeters.

5 centimeters to lean down and breathe warmth into Izaya’s cold lips.

Izaya feels his face heating up again so he pushes that ridiculous thought away.

It feels…weird. Like a tightness in his chest, or a fire burning the air in his lungs. Moreover, it’s frightening. As far as he knows, Izaya has never felt this sort of feeling before, and whatever it is, Izaya just wants it to stop.

He needs it’s to stop.

He _needs_ Shizuo to get off.

And then, thinking back to the switchblade in his hand, he panics and he directs it straight at Shizuo’s chest.

Perhaps it’s the cold, or on the other side of the spectrum, the insufferable warmth in his chest; whatever it is, his actions must be somewhat delayed, because Shizuo is far too quick to react. He grabs his hand and slams it down on the ground next to his head, hard. Thankfully, not hard enough to cause serious injury. Izaya surely doesn’t need to go to Shinra with any more broken fingers, considering the nature of their last few interactions.

Shizuo keeps clutching his wrist tightly and Izaya tries to struggle out from his grip, which only forces the sleeve of his shirt to brush against Shizuo’s grip, until the fabric slides down his arm and Shizuo is holding Izaya’s wrist directly. Still pinning his wrist, Shizuo shifts his position and lets go of Izaya’s coat, instead using his free hand to pry the switchblade from between his fingers. Izaya doesn’t resist and Shizuo bends the knife with his bare hand before tossing it to the side. 

“Why are you trying so hard to stab me, huh Izaya-kun? Weren’t you the one who wanted to stop fighting today in the first place?” Shizuo whispers harshly. His fingernails dig into the milky flesh of Izaya’s wrist, and while Izaya should be crying out in pain, instead he freezes. The feeling of Shizuo’s calloused fingers against his skin sends his heart pounding straight through his chest. There’s that weird tingle again, the one that sends a pleasant rush down his skin and down his spine, branching off from where Shizuo is touching him. He shudders.

“I’m only trying to defend myself,” Izaya stutters out.

Izaya doesn’t understand what’s going on or why his voice sounds so weak, nor does he comprehend why his cheeks are burning fervently. He’s looking at any possible factors to attribute his strange reactions too. Perhaps it’s just the cold; running without a jacket must have made him sick, or at least he’s beginning to experience the initial symptoms of a winter cold.

Shizuo continues to stare at him, analyzing his facial features.

Izaya stares back at him.

At the way his expression changes, eyes growing wide and his rage filled features softening .

He really can be quite handsome when he’s not rampaging. And if Izaya didn’t know any better, and if he actually allowed himself to, he feels as if he could actually get lost in Shizuo’s warm, brown eyes. Without realizing what he’s doing, Izaya’s fingers twitch and he brings them down to brush against Shizuo’s hand. Shizuo’s breath hitches in his throat and he immediately releases his grip. He jolts up, leaving Izaya in a state of absolute bewilderment.

Izaya takes a moment to mentally compose himself over what just happened. He’s left suddenly cold and desperate for warmth but the tightness in his chest persists. After a moment and a few deep breaths, Izaya, too, stands and dusts himself off before grabbing his coat and slipping it back on. He instantly feels better with the extra insulation, but there’s a certain urge deep in the pit of his stomach that wants something else, something warmer than his coat.

“Go home Izaya,” Shizuo sighs, uncharacteristically passively. Izaya wraps his arms around his waist. He should. He should just go home and forget that he ever even felt this way. Yet there’s a nagging at the back of his mind to keep Shizuo nearby just a little bit longer, which Izaya adamantly justifies as being his urge to annoy Shizuo.

“Fine Shizu-chan. I’ll go home. But… I want to get something to eat first,” he lies as he points up at the red sign on the other end of the street. Shizuo squints at the white English letters printed on the sign.

“Kei…Efu…Shi…?” Shizuo mumbles under his breath.

“Care to join me?” Izaya asks curiously, testing the waters, and Shizuo’s gaze snaps back to him. He’s ready to catch Izaya out on his teasing, but Izaya stands there, genuine in his request for Shizuo to accompany him.

“You’re serious?” Shizuo sputters, although his tone makes it seem a little bit too much like a statement rather than a question. Izaya nods his head.

“Yea, my treat.” 


	10. Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner. MHMM Finger Lickin' Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags:  
> \- Colonel Sanders would be proud  
> \- Tasty chicken  
> \- KFC Date is still a date

The line for the KFC is abysmally long, but there is nothing Orihara Izaya can’t achieve if he sets his mind to it. Being the stubborn and obsessive individual that he is, if he wants to get KFC with Shizuo on Christmas, then by god he will do just that no matter what it takes. In this case, it really doesn’t take a lot. Humans are incredibly predictable, and all Izaya has to do is stride his way inside like he owns the place, because realistically speaking, he very much could if he so wanted to. He doesn’t, of course, since why would he have any need for a fast food chain in the first place, unless it was just a front for some business of dubious legality? Although considering how packed the restaurant is, he truly debates just buying out the entire place for the next hour or two.

Shizuo trudges behind him and gives him skeptical looks as Izaya bypasses all the customers waiting patiently in line to place their order. He’s not immediately defensive, even when people give Izaya annoyed looks on account of his blatant disregard for the queue. It is a possibility that Izaya could very well have had a prior reservation, after all. However, the moment Izaya starts waving around wads of money, Shizuo sends him a sharp glare, implying that if Izaya continues to act inappropriately, Shizuo would have the incentive to break their truce and begin pursuing him with intentions to kill.

But Izaya, being the sly person that he is, has a retort for any qualms Shizuo may have.

“How can you call this shady? I don’t force anyone to do anything, they do it of their own accord.”

And really, Shizuo should just be glad that Izaya hadn’t stooped to more unorthodox methods of getting his way. Yet instead of listening to logic, he continues to glare at him as Izaya proceeds to order the full Christmas special, with chocolate cake included and everything. A few moments later, their order is ready and the cashier hands him a tray with a bucket of chicken, a box of cake, some sides, and a cup of coffee, all of which he promptly shoves into Shizuo’s hands because Izaya, despite being the generous god that he is and providing the poor with essential nourishment, isn’t about to stoop so low as to actually carry said nutrition for the said poor as well.

They quickly find a table, mostly because all it takes is for Izaya to shoot one glare at an unsuspecting couple to make them grab all their belongings and flee. The table itself is next to the window, so presumably the couple had also witnessed his and Shizuo’s little tiff outside, and not wanting to suffer a similar fate as the concrete, decided to do the responsible thing and give the two excessively violent idiots their space. The table itself is also conveniently placed in the very front of the restaurant, allowing Izaya to have a perfect view of the entire establishment.

As soon as they sit in the booth, Izaya looks away, his eyes glazing over the various interesting humans in front of him, as far as the eye can see. He watches them intently, studies their reactions while they remain oblivious to his observations. Couples. Couples everywhere. That’s the main thing he can see and it’s…admittedly a little boring. He scowls. This is precisely another reason why he hates the holidays; everything is so boring, so predictable. Time just stands still while he feels stuck inside of a snow globe; a picture perfect little scene encompassing the winter spirit. No drama, no corruption, just a mantelpiece decoration.

If not for Shizuo, he would have stirred up some drama by now or started some controversy, proclaiming to the whole restaurant that the chicken they were using was poisoned or something just to see the reaction. Anything, really, instead of having to sit with all these lovey dovey couples feeding each other bits of food. He looks back to Shizuo who is chewing on a piece of chicken, his eyes watching Izaya intently like a hawk, but still keeping true to his word and not attacking him. Izaya leans back against his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You keep watching me, expecting me to do something… I don’t even know what. I’m not going to do anything, so why not just enjoy yourself while you still can?” Izaya comments, cocking his head to the side.

“If you’re not up to something, then why did you want to come here, huh?” Shizuo interrogates, before biting into a chicken wing. Izaya sniggers a little just at how apprehensive Shizuo is acting. His eyes shift to the window, glazing over the swarm of couples just past the thin glass. At this point, even his own reflection is more amusing to watch. After a moment, he snaps his attention back to Shizuo and takes the lid off his coffee.

“Call it a Christmas tradition or whatever. I wanted to try it at least once, since I suppose you could say it is a big deal in Japan. Isn’t it customary to have KFC during the holidays?” Izaya muses as he looks down and starts trailing his finger along the outer rim of the cup. He can feel the heat from the steam radiating off the hot beverage, but given his ever shifting motions, it doesn’t bother him all that greatly.

“Then why aren’t you eating?” Shizuo badgers, and Izaya looks up again to meet his gaze. His honey brown eyes are narrowed, watching the way his finger twirls around the cup. The corner of Izaya’s lip twitches upwards for a moment.

“I’ll have you know, my body is a temple. You can’t expect me to just pump it full of any old junk,” Izaya answers with mock offense, as if the mere notion of Izaya eating deep fried chicken was enough to make him sick, let alone actually eating it.

“And that’s why you’re such a bean sprout,” Shizuo grumbles under his breath. Izaya is a little taken aback. The last time he checked, his BMI was in the correct range so joke’s on you, Shizuo. As if that was the most accurate measure of health… Still, he should have expected that comment. In comparison to Shizuo, the 6 foot tall beast, Izaya _is_ just a bean sprout.

“Unlike Shizu-chan, who shovels food into his mouth as if he were a trash can,” Izaya retorts in a teasing way, and Shizuo instantly stops his movements, his hands raised with a piece of chicken halfway between his plate and mouth.

“Or knowing you, you tampered with the food. You haven’t even touched that coffee, even though you like bitter things,” Shizuo snaps back and throws the piece of chicken into the already chewed through pile of bones, causing them to splatter and fall across the table. One piece even lands on Izaya’s side of the table and he looks at it with disdain, making a disgusted face as he tentatively brings the tip of his finger against it and flicks it back in Shizuo’s direction, before wiping his fingernail against a napkin. He can’t help but be slightly offended. This is the second time Shizuo had accused him of poisoning food when he’d been, in fact innocent. Plus, if Izaya _were_ to poison anyone, he would surely do it though carbon monoxide inhalation, _not_ food poisoning which would take _much_ longer to kill someone.

“Geez Shizu-chan, you’re such a child. Got any more interesting theories for me? With such great deduction skills, you should have considered being a detective,” Izaya says sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. Instead of taking great offense at Izaya’s mocking tone, Shizuo decides to take his words at face value, giving a serious response to a rhetorical question,

“I have, actually. When I was a kid,” he mutters. Even despite not receiving Izaya’s formal denial of having tampered with the food, he picks up the piece of chicken he’d dropped and continues eating. Izaya merely raises his eyebrows, his curiosity piqued. He shifts in his seat, uncomfortable as it is (but what else can one expect from a fast food restaurant). He then props his elbows up on the table and rests his chin against his entwined fingers. He takes this sudden shift to a more serious atmosphere as a way to ask the question that’s been bothering ever since he’d started having his strange dreams.

“And did you, by any chance, also break your bones often when you were a kid? Spent more time in hospitals than at home?” he asks, his voice dropping by a few decibels. Shizuo narrows his eyes again but luckily doesn’t go into a rage induced frenzy, as he so often would. It’s not like Izaya is purposefully trying to provoke him, and perhaps Shizuo can read that from his expression and the calmness of his voice.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Shizuo snaps back, chewing aggressively in the process. Typical Shizuo, difficult as always. Izaya lets out an irritated sigh. This is precisely why he hates actually trying to have a civil conversation with Shizuo. Always so apprehensive, never giving Izaya what he wants. If only Shizuo could be a little easier to handle, without immediately jumping to conclusions… perhaps then they could actually, potentially almost, maybe be friends.

“I’m just curious, that’s all,” Izaya persists. Shizuo glosses him over, watching his body movement and looking for any signs of malicious intent. Surely, even he should be aware of how unusually diffident and sincere Izaya was acting. Surely, even he should realize the importance of Izaya’s question in the first place. Thankfully, he does. At least he answers honestly this time.

“Being the shady guy you are, don’t you already know everything there is to know about me?” Shizuo huffs out. Izaya lets out a small chuckle. The irony of it all is that Shizuo is the only person that Izaya can’t quite figure out, which is why he never considers him to be a person to begin with. He’s just an unintelligible monster Izaya could never quite understand. So no, Izaya doesn’t know everything about Shizuo. Sure, he had him looked into a little out of curiosity, but it’s not exactly like every single event in Shizuo’s life was laid out on a piece of paper for him to read over.

“I don’t, not at all,” he answers.

“But I would like to.”

The way in which Izaya says this is borderline flirting, as if they were out on a date and trying to get to know each other. He hadn’t meant for it to come out that way, yet it had. Shizuo just continues to stare at him, his eyes widening bit by a bit as he tries to process Izaya’s actions. To him, Izaya truly must be acting strange and very much unlike himself.

“So could you just answer my question?” Izaya then quickly adds, as if to divert Shizuo’s attention from the strange way he’d uttered his previous words. Shizuo purses his lips and shifts his eyes downwards before bringing them up again to stare at Izaya.

“Yea, I did. Every damn bone in my body at least three times. Are you satisfied now?” he snaps. Izaya nods his head along. Normally, he’d find it fascinating, curious even. He wouldn’t exactly be empathetic to Shizuo’s experiences and would brush them off, instead opting to laugh at this revelation because it would only serve to showcase more of Shizuo’s abnormalities. Yet the first thing that pops into his mind is the sensation of all those bones breaking, over and over. He’d been dreaming about it, night after night. He’s woken up in a cold sweat more times than he can count, his body numb from the aftershock. He’d be lying if he said he’d never broken a bone as a kid. Hell, he’d broken his finger just a two months ago, and that in itself had been painful enough. But to always be breaking his bones with no rest? To be bound to a hospital bed with no personal autonomy, having to rely on others to constantly care for you? Being alone like that. 

In this moment, Izaya thinks that maybe he could very well sympathize with Shizuo. It’s at this moment he’s suddenly hit with the realization that Shizuo’s monstrous strength had actually come with a price. A price that Izaya had never really thought about before. His mind wanders to one other scene from his dreams, the one at the bakery.

“Did you also used to walk by a bakery on your way home from school? A bakery that you ended up destroying?” He asks quietly, silently begging Shizuo to just answer normally without any freaking out. Of course, Shizuo does just the opposite. His eyes narrow and his breath becomes heavy. He snaps the chicken bone in his hand with ease. Even for a normal human, breaking a chicken bone is far from an impressive feat, yet the actual sound of the bone being crushed ends up echoing in Izaya’s ears, making his head feel dizzy. Just the mere sound is enough to trigger a flash back to his dreams, and he flinches slightly upon hearing it, his heart rate accelerating slightly and his forehead dampening with sweat. He’s suddenly overcome with a feeling of fear bordering on terror as he comes to terms with the fact that it could have very well been his bone. That for Shizuo, snapping a human bone was just as easy as snapping a chicken bone.

“ _What in the hell are you getting at, flea?”_ He growls, tone so ice cold and laced with a venom that sends a shiver shooting down Izaya’s spine. Not that he lets it show. He would love to give Shizuo a multitude of sly replies, yet all that comes out of his mouth is a slew of slurred words.

“N-nothing! I’m not getting at anything! J-just forget I ever said anything look are you done yet can we go?” He stutters out while defensively waving his hands in front of his chest. Shizuo looks to be at the edge of his limits. His hands are digging into the table between them, forcing the brittle wood to crack and crumble under the pressure he’s exerting over it. Izaya just proceeds to shift uncomfortably in his seat, not sure how he should feel. At this point, he just wants to leave already and not be locked under Shizuo’s gaze as if he were an organism taped to a slide under the lens of a microscope. Yet the more Shizuo stares at Izaya and actually watches him, the more his grip on the table relaxes.

“No way. You paid for the damn cake so I’m going to eat the damn cake,” Shizuo mumbles stubbornly. By now, the chicken is all gone and the only thing remaining is the cake. For a moment, Izaya’s mind completely shuts off and does a full reboot as he attempts to comprehend the sudden shift in Shizuo’s demeanor. The previously heavy and tense atmosphere between them is suddenly not so unpleasant anymore, and just like that, all negative emotions seem to dissipate. He can’t help it. He starts laughing, watching Shizuo as he unwraps the chocolate cake. The look on his face: eyes downcast shrouded by his golden locks, lips held closely together and pouting innocently. It really does make him look childish and it’s... positively adorable. 

“You seriously are just like a little kid, Shizu-chan. Gotta have your dessert, ne?” he chortles. Shizuo shoots him a quick glare.

“Shut up and drink your stupid coffee already,” Shizuo grumbles, and Izaya finally calms down. He looks back to the untouched cup of coffee in front of him. By now it had cooled off significantly to the point that it was no longer radiating off steam.

“Sure sure. Don’t mind me, just eat your cake,” Izaya smiles. He picks up the cup and brings it to his lips, deeply inhaling the aroma of the coffee. It doesn’t smell all that amazing. Cheap, even, yet he still drinks it. It’s very bitter and leaves an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth. He quickly sets the cup back down and instead decides to intently watch Shizuo devour his cake. Izaya doesn’t remember a time he’s witnessed Shizuo being so calm before. Like a hungry animal, suddenly satiated and too occupied by its food to lash out. What’s more, Shizuo isn’t just being docile. Instead, it’s as if he’s actually enjoying himself.

For once, a genuine smile graces Izaya’s lips as his eyes track the movement of Shizuo’s hand, going back and forth between the cake and his lips. Back and forth, back and forth, until Izaya stops following the clockwork routine and instead fixates his gaze on Shizuo’s lips, watching them move in rhythm to his chewing. Then he stops chewing entirely, swallows, and opens his mouth to speak.

“Stop staring at me like that. It’s creepy,” those parted lips say, snapping Izaya out of his daze. He blinks a few times, shaking his head before looking away to the side and focusing once again at the window.

“Why would I ever want to stop?” he murmurs absentmindedly.

The reflection of his own maroon eyes stares back at him and suddenly, he becomes increasingly aware of the expression he’s been making while he’d been staring at Shizuo. It’s an expression he hadn’t been aware he could make, especially in public: a fond look, showcasing just how sensitive he truly is at heart. Shocked by his own vulnerability, he flinches back slightly. He can see his cheeks take on a slightly dusty pink hue. Moreover, he can feel his face heat up more and more with each passing second. He quickly sneaks a peek at Shizuo out of the corner of his peripheral vision and notices the light pink flush grazing across Shizuo’s nose. _Must be the heat,_ he reasons. The restaurant is quite stuffy with so many people around.

Shizuo doesn’t say anything else, choosing to instead shut up, look down, and continue eating his cake in absolute silence while trying to ignore the subtle gazes Izaya shoots his way. Because indeed, Izaya can’t peel his eyes away. Somehow, the sight of Shizuo looking flushed and embarrassed is much more satisfying to watch than anything his precious humans could ever possibly do.

Who would have thought?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The urge to just make them be together already is strong, but not as strong as the endless pining and the desperate need to hurt them. Next chapter I'm posting on Christmas :D because it's the conclusion to the Christmas chapters


	11. A Magic CARP-et Ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and Merry Christmas to all :3 Or happy holidays to whatever anyone is celebrating. 
> 
> Me: I want to keep the chapters short , between 3k – 4k words should be good, will be easier to read, I’ll just update more frequently  
> Also me: 8k word chapter leT’S gO. 
> 
> Tags:  
> ~~~Unbelievable sights  
> Indescribable feeling~~~  
> \- "A Whole New World" playing in the background  
> \- Internal monologuing  
> \- Hand holding  
> :3

The moment Izaya steps outside, he’s instantly hit with the cool air. If he thought it was cold outside before, it sure as hell had gotten colder in the two hours since he’d actually stumbled across Shizuo. Couple that with the stuffy, hot air inside that had him sweating, and it really is no wonder that the chilly winter has him shivering. He instantly zips up his coat up to his neck and starts walking. His first instinct is to take a more secluded route back home, if only for the sole reason that he is still with Shizuo, who will undoubtedly follow him home, and he doesn’t want to risk getting caught being friendly with him. He doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea and would rather not take any chances, even if Shizuo’s bartender uniform is concealed by his coat and his flashy blond hair under a Santa hat.

Then he feels a tugging on his hood again and all he can think is: _No, no, oh hell to the no, not again!_

“ _Seriously?”_ he hisses out, turning his head to Shizuo. Shizuo, in turn, spins him around to face him.

“Where do you think you’re hopping off to, damn flea?” he spits out. Izaya puffs his cheeks and pouts like a little kid.

“Where do you _think?_ I said I would go home after eating so I’m going _home_ ,” he huffs. Shizuo lets go of his hood and Izaya crosses his arms over his chest, irritated over the fact that no matter what he seemed to do, Shizuo would never be satisfied with his actions.

“Around some shady alleyways? I don’t think so. I’m taking you back myself,” Shizuo replies in a gruff voice. Izaya rolls his eyes. By now, it was becoming a recurring habit of his whenever he was around Shizuo. Any moment now and he would pull an eye muscle or something.

“Do you even _know_ the way? And are you seriously going to make me _walk_ all the way back to Shinjuku?” Izaya inquires and Shizuo nods his head.

“Obviously, since I’ve been to your apartment. I know where you live, flea, and I’m going to keep my eye on you the whole way to make sure you’re not taking any unexpected detours,” Shizuo explains. Of course, Izaya knows that. Shizuo has paid him a few unexpected visits here and there throughout the years. Even so, it had been to only one of his apartments. As far as he’s concerned, the other two are safe.

“Oh, and how are you going to do that, Shizu-chan? How are you going to keep an eye on me? You surely _must_ know that I refuse to be dragged around like a rag doll, so what will you do? Going to hold my hand? Are you going to pretend we’re a couple as well to _blend in with the crowd_?” Izaya quips sarcastically. He wonders what Shizuo’s reaction would be, considering the fact that if Izaya was in Shizuo’s place, he’d surely be disgusted. Holding hands with his worst enemy: surely if there was anyone Shizuo would want to hold hands with, it would be his stupid, precious girlfriend of his (which Izaya is still flip-flopping between believing that Shizuo had actually managed to get into a relationship and at the same time adamantly denying the validity of said relationship). He expects the usual reaction: rage, repugnance, hate. But instead of looking shocked, or disgusted, or just flat out laughing at the ridiculous notion, Shizuo is lost in thought for once, actually contemplating it.

Without warning, Shizuo reaches over and grabs Izaya’s hand. Izaya’s breath hitches in his throat, his eyes growing wide as he stares at Shizuo’s fingers entwined with his.

“You’re fucking kidding me…I wasn’t _serious_!” Izaya chokes out, though by now it’s too late. His heart is thumping in his chest and he can’t fully come to terms with the fact that even though he shouldn’t be feeling anything, he definitely feels _something._ That same pleasant tingle of electricity dancing across his skin. Shizuo’s hands are soft, yet somewhat rough in their own regard. Figures, since he’s always getting into fights and throwing things. It’s only natural for him to have developed a thicker layer of skin, like the monster he is.

“Next time maybe you should make it clearer what you want,” Shizuo grumbles his reply, how voice holding a subtle hint of mischief. Just what in the hell is he thinking? Izaya can never tell, and it annoys him beyond belief. Of course, Izaya isn’t going to let himself be dragged around. Much less, in such an embarrassing way. Naturally, he begins resisting by tugging his hand back.

“Sure, sure, joke’s over now,” he says, but Shizuo doesn’t ease up. Instead, his grip tightens until he’s squeezing Izaya’s fingers together.

“Come Shizu-chan, let go you big idiot,” he continues to protest, desperately trying to free his hand from Shizuo’s iron grip, which keeps getting tighter and tighter. Izaya can feel the pain start to resonate throughout his hand. It hurts. He feels as if any moment now, and Shizuo very well may just end up crushing his bones. He gasps, but fails at hiding the true extent of his injury.

“Ow, ow, seriously Shizu-chan, it hurts! You’re squeezing my hand too tightly,” he whines, and Shizuo eases up just a little. Just a little, but his grip still remains.

“What’s wrong, I-za-ya- _kun_? It was your idea in the first place. And being the asshole that you are, you’d _never_ admit that one of your ideas was bad,” Shizuo teases, yes actually teases. Truly, this day is one oddity after another. What’s next? A romantic walk through the park?

“You’re too cruel. Seriously. After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me? I bought you a present, I bought you food. I was even willing to call a truce but here you are, acting as vicious as ever,” he complains. Though instead of being annoyed by Izaya’s comments, Shizuo seems more amused than anything by his pouting expression. _What the fuck_. Izaya swears he can even see Shizuo’s lip twitch upwards into a half smile. It’s weird. It’s not normal. And it’s almost… nice.

Shizuo ends up tugging him along, taking a relatively secluded route with less people but at the same time making sure to keep out of completely deserted areas. It’s a smart choice. If there are no crowds, Izaya won’t be able to run off and blend into them, and Shizuo would have a hard time trying not to hurt all the innocent bystanders. At the same time though, it’s Shizuo. Who knows what that man is capable of?

Somewhere along the line, Shizuo’s grip on Izaya’s hand changes from simply holding his palm to actually interlocking their fingers together. And suddenly Izaya becomes all too aware of the way Shizuo’s thumb brushes against his index finger, as if he was subconsciously trying to be affectionate. His mind keeps flipping back to focusing on the same sensation. Shizuo’s hand is really, really warm. Abnormally so, like a miniature radiator. It’s fitting, considering he is a monster after all, but what doesn’t make sense is Izaya finding that sensation to be far better than even the warmest pair of winter gloves.

It’s not just his hand. It feels almost as if the sensation is radiating up to his face, making his cheeks flushed, and his chest, making it feel tight. For once, Izaya wishes he could take back what he’d said to Shizuo. Even if he is a pompous asshole, he can still admit when he’d made a mistake, and suggesting they hold hands had been the most horrendous mistake of all.

Then all too suddenly, Shizuo stops, forcing Izaya to collide with the hard muscles of his back. The sensation is akin to walking head first into a brick wall, and Izaya’s nose, which had become rather sensitive because of the cold, suffers the brunt of the force. He takes a step back and rubs his aching nose.

“Next time you decide to stop in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason, a little warning would be greatly appreciated,” he mumbles, somewhat nasally as he continues to soothe his nose. Shizuo doesn’t respond, leaving Izaya to feel slightly perplexed. His first assumption would be that they have arrived at Izaya’s house, but one look at the dingy streets around them proves that they are, in fact, nowhere near Izaya’s luxurious apartment.

Izaya’s quick witted second speculation is that Shizuo had seen his little lady friend or someone he’d hate to have catching him holding hands with his mortal enemy. That suspicion is also proven false as Izaya fails to spot, well, anyone at all in their general vicinity except for a few boring, faceless strangers minding their own business.

“… Never mind, forget it,” Shizuo says and shifts his attention back to the pavement. The action just makes Izaya even more curious. He looks in the direction Shizuo had been looking previously and raises a curious eyebrow. In that direction, the pavement branches off slightly and leads into a small park. He knows of it, but has never actually been inside. There doesn’t appear to be anyone standing there, but even with the street lights illuminating the entrance, it’s too dark to see past the thickets of trees and tell for certain.

For a fleeting moment, Izaya thinks that maybe it had been Shizuo’s intention to walk through the park. Fleeting only, since following Shizuo’s logic of not letting Izaya into empty, dark spaces would mean Shizuo would want to keep away from such areas like the park, where Izaya would be far too easy to lose. He’s probably constantly thinking and wondering if Izaya is off scheming up ways to escape his grip, even though Izaya is doing no such thing. If he wanted to escape by now, he surely would have. Which begs the question: why had Shizuo stopped in the first place? Why had he been looking at the park?

“Hey…Shizu-chan…let’s walk through the park,” Izaya ends up saying quietly. And maybe Izaya is foolish for having said it. Maybe he’d only said it because his cheeks are burning with such intense redness that he just wants to get out of the spot light of the street lights, or maybe he just wants a distraction from the warmth radiating off of Shizuo’s hand. Whatever it is, Izaya convinces himself that it’s not because it would be, God forbid, _nice_ to walk through the park with Shizuo.

And it really is too bad that Shizuo still finds ways to be difficult.

“No way. You’re just going to run off again.”

_Then why were you looking that way, Shizu-chan? What is the reason for anything you do?_

In all this time, Izaya had not once tried to escape, and that’s the honest truth. Surely, Shizuo’s suspicions should be at least somewhat put to rest. But realistically, it’s not like Izaya ever expected much from a person he deems as being a single celled organism with half a functioning brain cell. On the other hand, given their extensive history with each other, it’s no wonder Shizuo has to little faith in Izaya which makes Izaya feel almost… sad? Hurt? For what reason? That’s the way Izaya wants it to be, the way he likes it. Of course, Shizuo’s lack of trust and refusal to walk through the park only makes Izaya want to go in even more.

“H-hey, Shizu..o. I won’t. I just want to walk through the park,” Izaya explains calmly. He ends up using Shizuo’s actual name instead of his usual nick name to further emphasize his innocence. He even goes as far as to give Shizuo’s hand a small squeeze. Shizuo examines his face for any signs of deviousness with that usual irritated scowl he wears whenever there’s a matter concerning Izaya, while Izaya finds himself curiously watching Shizuo’s facial expressions shift from anger to ??? what is that expression? Recognition? Acceptance? Acknowledgement?

“…O…Okay…” Shizuo concedes.

Izaya’s heart rate accelerates once again. A moment like this surely must be a dream, an illusion, a deviation from reality. Shizuo actually agreeing to something Izaya had proposed without any questions? No talk backs? No protests? No further comments about Izaya doing something dubious? No threats? Just Shizuo agreeing to one of Izaya’s whims. Without noticing, Izaya cracks a small smile. A genuine one that startles not only Shizuo, but himself. He quickly drops the smile and presses his lips into a thin line before beginning to tug at Shizuo’s hand, pulling him to the park.

And Shizuo follows.

The entrance to the park is indeed very dim, but more lights begin to appear venturing deeper past the dense forestry. Little Christmas ornaments draped over the trees and nearby bushes illuminate the way, but their glow is barely enough to provide enough light to the entire park; but it’s just enough for path ahead. Izaya squints his eyes so he can see further into the distance, and once he gets closer, he notices a small clearing just up ahead.

While Shizuo is distracted by the twinkling lights around them, Izaya seamlessly slips his hand away and starts to jog ahead of him, disappearing into the cluster of tall trees. He’s somewhat aware of Shizuo starting to bolt after him, but at the same time he’s a little too mesmerized to care or think about the reason for Shizuo’s panicked run. He stops only when he reaches the clearing, and Shizuo stops behind him.

In front of them is a large pond, surrounded by little bushes and greenery lining all the way around the outskirts. The only place absent of lush forestry is where the path cuts through the middle of the pond onto a small white bridge with strips of bright lights coiled around the red, wooden railing. Izaya skips closer to the pond with a newfound childish giddiness. He crouches down so he can get a better look. There is a thin layer of ice covering the top of the pond, but underneath there is an array of beautiful, red koi swimming idly in one large cluster.

“Eh, look, look Shizu-chan, it’s a koi pond,” he exclaims, his voice a little high pitched and full of wonder. Shizuo walks up behind him, hands in his pockets and staring at him intently while Izaya’s gaze skips from fish to fish.

“Don’t you hate fish, or their eyes or something?” Shizuo asks. Izaya briefly turns his head to look at him, his eyebrow quirked questioningly at him. Izaya sticks out his tongue playfully.

“Only if they’re dead, Shizu-chan. Do these fish look dead to you?” He asks as he curiously picks up a nearby twig and starts prodding at the surface of the ice.

“No,” Shiuzo states flatly and narrows his eyes slightly.

“And don’t bother the fish, flea,” he adds, scolding him. His tone isn’t too threatening though, so Izaya doesn’t take him seriously in the slightest and continues to poke the ice with his stick. To his pleasant surprise, a koi swims up to where he’s tapping and starts opening and closing its little mouth, as if searching for food.

“I’m not, this one totally likes me,” Izaya giggles and Shizuo steps closer before crouching down beside him. The koi itself is a magnificent a rarity, with its iridescent yellow and black scales being a sharp contrast to the red and black of the other koi. It’s also the only one most entranced by the rapping of the stick. Poor thing must think it’s some sort of food or something.

“Kind of reminds me of you, actually,” Izaya muses, and Shizuo shoots him a curious glance, as if asking him ‘why’ with his eyes.

“How?” he mutters. In that moment, the koi butts is head against the ice, as if trying to break through. Izaya struggles to keep himself from bursting out in laughter. In his mind, the koi really is akin to Shizuo since they both seem to have a tiny brain incapable of thinking logically. It truly is a wonder how many animals Izaya can even compare Shizuo to, because at the end of the day, that’s what he is: a stupid, mindless animal. 

“Well it’s yellow, monstrous in size, and doesn’t fit in with the other fish, just like the _monstrous_ Shizu-chan.”

Izaya quickly pulls the stick away as the koi breaks through the thick layer of ice and shoots straight up, sliding across the ice. The fish thrashes around wildly, probably trying to break another hole so it can slip back in, even though the initial hole is only a few centimeters away from.

“Haha, how silly. Look, the fish really _is_ like you: abnormally strong and really, _really_ stupid. Look at it flail around haha. Hey Shizu-chan, maybe you should save it and adopt it, ey?” Izaya giggles, the sound of his laughter mixing in with the low growl coming from the bottom of Shizuo’s throat.

“Now wouldn’t that be something, ne? Though knowing you, you’d probably just end up killing it. Maybe we should adopt it together, lol, at least that way it will have some chance at survival” he teases.

In the next moment, Shizuo abruptly jolts up to his feet and slides his arms under Izaya’s armpits. He effortlessly lifts him up off his feet and dangles a him few inches off the ground. Startled, Izaya squeals and cranes his neck to try and get a look at Shizuo as he swings his feet around, trying to touch ground with his shoes. Shizuo takes a few steps closer to the pond and holds Izaya over the frozen waters, forcing Izaya to stop his efforts in achieving freedom. He goes limp in Shizuo’s arms as to not accidentally fall in the water.

“S-Shizu-chan, come on, it was a joke. You’re not actually going to drop me, are you?” Izaya stutters, shifting his focus to desperately clinging onto Shizuo’s arms with all his might.

“Say, Izaya-kun, why don’t we find out who is better at flailing on the ice. The carp, or _you_ ,” Shizuo hisses, his voice low and threatening yet at the same time, coming off somewhat playful. Izaya lets out a small, high pitched shriek.

“Y-you can’t. Seriously. I’m sensitive to the cold! I’ll get hypothermia! I-I can’t even swim. If you drop me, I’ll drown for sure! Y-you’ll have to give me CPR! Help me get warm, otherwise I’ll _die_ ,” Izaya stutters out in a panic.

“You know, everything you said just makes this all the more tempting,” Shizuo retorts and gives Izaya a little shake, his grip loosening a little. Izaya lets out another little squeal and clutches the sleeves of Shizuo’s coat. The implication of Shizuo’s words barely crosses his mind as he focuses on keeping Shizuo from trying to drop him.

“Y-you can’t be serious,” Izaya fumbles. Then with a little ‘plop’, the koi slips back into the hole in the ice while flicking its tail, sending water splashing up just high enough to reach the soles of Izaya’s shoes. Izaya lets out a sigh of relief.

“Ah, well, can’t compare it now since the koi is back in the water. Farewell, my Shizu-koi*. You will be missed,” he murmurs with exaggerated mourning over his precious, lost fish. And then, he freezes.

Error.

Error.

Izaya.exe has stopped working.

He feels Shizuo’s body tense slightly, with his hands gripping him tighter than before, yet the pain he feels from Shizuo’s fingers digging into his sides pales in comparison to the embarrassment he feels on the inside. His cheeks start to burn fervently. No, no, no, no. It had been purely accidental. A coincidence. A mistake. He hadn’t meant it to come out that way. Even if so, there is no way Shizuo had interpreted it _that way_ , is there? _Is there?_ Because… Just the mere thought is enough to send Izaya’s skin crawling. As if Izaya would ever use the words ‘love’ and ‘Shizuo’ in the same sentence, unless it was how he ‘ _loved_ to _hate_ ’ him. And yet…he’d done it, so plainly and blatantly and most definitely unintentionally, even using a possessive pronoun, to make matters worse, as if Shizuo truly was _his_.

“What the hell did you just say?” Shizuo asks through gritted teeth, his voice lightly trembling as he pulls Izaya away from the pond and sets him back down on the ground. Izaya has no idea about what kind of expression Shizuo could be making now because he simply refuses to turn around to face him. He doesn’t want to, by any means. Or more likely, he simply can’t bring himself to do it, because if he were to turn and face Shizuo it would only expose his own embarrassment at his slight mishap, and that’s something he definitely wanted to avoid showing to Shizuo.

The other reason is because he can already envision the type of look on Shizuo’s face. The furrowed brows, the crinkled nose, the deep scowl. It’s disgustingly obvious: repugnance. Revulsion, distaste, abhorrence. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He can’t come to face that, he thinks. Normally, he’d be overjoyed at seeing Shizuo be put off by him, if he was intentionally trying to annoy him. This time, it’s different. It’s different because Izaya’s cheeks are red and flushed and because there are butterflies fluttering in his stomach, making him feel a little sick.

Sick, because deep down in the depths of his dark, black, rotting heart, there’s a sliver of hope; he hopes that Shizuo’s expression is actually not of absolute disgust, but rather akin to that same softness he’d displayed here and there throughout their time together. He hopes, a fleeting daydream, an illusion shattered the moment he would turn around. That’s why he absolutely refuses to turn. If it is indeed disgust, Izaya doesn’t think that in this moment, right now, he could bear to see it.

And if it isn’t. If what Izaya’s shriveled heart hopes for…well, deep down, he knows if he were to see that certain fondness, he won’t be able to call Shizuo a monster anymore. At least, just for one day. Just for today. So, he keeps his feet planted firmly in the gravel and doesn’t dare look, instead pretending to be oblivious.

“I said goodbye to the fish. Duh? The fish. Or perhaps is it actually Shizu-chan who is like a fish and can’t remember things for more than seven seconds?“ Izaya questions, this time being careful to specify the word ‘fish’ instead of ‘koi. He can practically feel Shizuo’s gaze on the back of his neck, drilling in through his skin as if to bore into the very depths of his soul. It makes him feel exposed, vulnerable even. Moreover, panicked. His first instinct is to get as far away from those honey brown eyes as possible. So, he does. Without so much as a warning, Izaya breaks off into a sprint and leaps straight ahead towards the bridge overlooking the pond. Shizuo, still slightly dazed, quickly comes to and bounds after him.

“Oi, Izaya!” he exclaims, running after him. Izaya arrives at the very center of the bridge and falters for a moment, allowing Shizuo to catch up. As soon as he’s close enough, he grabs a hold of Izaya’s wrist and tugs sharply, forcing Izaya to stop dead in his tracks and come spinning around to crash into Shizuo’s chest. Izaya’s breath hitches from both having the air knocked out of his lungs and the sheer shock coming from the sudden warmth radiating off Shizuo’s chest. He quickly pulls himself away and turns his head away.

“Relax Shizu-chan, I just wanted to get a better look at the… fish,” Izaya lies. Having realized Izaya isn’t going to run anymore, Shizuo loosens his grip on Izaya’s wrist and drops it completely, the tension slowly dissipating from his shoulders. Izaya still doesn’t want to face him though, and instead turns his body and walks up to the blocky railing of the bridge. He rests his palms against the red wood and stares out ahead at the frozen pond, his eyes somewhat glazed over. The wood under his fingertips is cold but he doesn’t remove his hands. He feels that now, he needs the cold as some sort of a shock factor to bring him back to reality. A harsh reality check, or a distraction from his own internal turmoil. A mixture of discomfort and unease writhes and seethes in the pit of his stomach and his head starts to ache from two opposing sides in constant discord arguing inside his head. His eyes are set on the koi lazily swimming under the ice, but his mind is somewhere else entirely.

_It’s not so bad, is it? Getting along with Shizuo and all…spending time together during the holidays. The company is nice, isn’t it? You were so miserable and lonely, sitting by yourself in that empty apartment, weren’t you? At least now you have someone to keep you company._

**_No, that’s absurd. I’ve never once felt lonely with so many interesting humans to keep me entertained. Watching people is all I need in my life. Manipulating them, playing with them. All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players… and I love watching them. With such a broad spectacle, how could I ever feel bored or alone? Today, I just happened to bump into Shizu-chan, and it’s not my fault Shizu-chan had decided to, as he put it, ‘kindly escort me home’._ **

_Or maybe there’s another reason he stuck around for so long. Not even your own sisters wanted to spend Christmas with you, yet the one person who supposedly hates you with his entire being just happened to stick around._

**_That’s ridiculous. It was my choice just as much as it was theirs. Who am I to intrude if they already have plans? Besides, Christmas isn’t even that important of a holiday. It’s absolutely meaningless and nonsensical._ **

_Sure, sure. So you don’t feel happy that someone decided to spend their time with you? Not even a little? Shizuo isn’t even that bad to be around with, is he? When he’s not actively trying to kill you, that is._

**_No, Shizu-chan is awful. I hate him. I absolutely loathe him. No matter what, I will always, always hate him. He always gets in my way and never does anything I want him to. He’s a wild animal, a beast. A monster. He can’t be controlled._ **

_Isn’t that what makes him so much more interesting and entertaining in the first place? Because you never know what he’s going to do. He’s a walking mystery, completely unpredictable. Isn’t that exciting? Even today, he agreed to stop fighting you._

**_Absolutely not. It’s not exciting. And above all else, Shizu-chan still hates me. Even if for once day we’re able to get along, at the end of the day, we will revert back to our old ways. No matter what I do, he will always hate me. Even if we’d met under different circumstances, even if we weren’t linked with this accursed bond…Heiwajima Shizuo would always, always hate me, the one and only Orihara Izaya. That’s just the way things are, and are meant to be._ **

_Then look at him. Stare into his eyes without malicious intent and see for yourself if that really is true._

Izaya tilts his head slightly and takes a glance at Shizuo, only to catch him staring intently at him. Upon being caught, he quickly averts his gaze and starts fidgeting, hopping from one foot to the next and rubbing the back of his head. He then takes out his packet of cigarettes, slips one out and places it between his lips before lighting it. Izaya watches as he inhales the smoke deeply into his lungs, holds it for a brief second, and releases it, just a little too close to Izaya’s face. Izaya instantly scrunches up his nose is disgust as he feels the smoke infiltrate his olfactory system, wondering how in the world Shizuo could consume the cancer sticks one after the other as if they were lollipops. Especially such a disgusting brand, at that.

Another puff of smoke soon follows, this time directed away from Izaya’s general direction. Had that been intentional? Had Shizuo actually acknowledged Izaya’s grimace towards the cigarette and directed the smoke away from him? And the way he stares at Izaya, as if waiting for him to say something, even though Izaya is at a complete loss for words. Or rather, he has plenty to say. Words that spawn from the little devil in his head, egging him on to say the most ridiculous of things. 

_“You know Shizu-chan, you actually do look so handsome in that Santa hat. Not at all threatening. Say, won’t you hold my hand again? My fingers are slowly starting to freeze and you’re so warm. Oh won’t you please warm me up?”_

**_Shut up._ **

Izaya leans his elbow against the bridge and brings his fist against to mouth to cover his lips. He wonders if Shizuo is currently thinking the same things as him. Is he also conflicted inside? Is he also confused by Izaya’s actions, in the same way Izaya is confused by his? Is Shizuo internally denying the spark between them every time they touch, just like he is? Or does he simply accept it? Or does he not feel it at all? Is it Izaya the only one that’s crazy and heavily in denial about just how _warm_ Shizuo is and how much he wants to reach over and brush their fingers together, just to get another taste of that intense warmth. Is Izaya the only one who thinks that maybe, just maybe, if they hold hands again, Izaya could very well become addicted to Shizuo’s heat? His internal voice is right. It _is_ addicting. Whether Izaya likes it or not, that’s how it is.

All for some arbitrary reason. It’s the stupid soulmate shit that’s making him feel that way. Of course. These aren’t Izaya’s real feelings. Suddenly, it all makes sense. Any attraction he feels for Shizuo is not even real. That comforting touch, the tightness in his chest, the warmth on his cheeks: all just involuntary reactions controlled by an extrinsic force. Once he finds a way to rid himself of this nuisance, it will all be over. The desire to be close to Shizuo will be gone and they will be able to return to their usual routine of cat and mouse. All Izaya has to do is just… eliminate the cause of this. He turns to Shizuo, who by this time has disposed of his cigarette. He knows what he wants to say now, but Shizuo, being…Shizuo, doesn’t let him so much as utter a single word.

So what moronic thing does the dumb protozoan do this time? Why, he takes off his Santa hat and brings it down, aiming straight for Izaya. Izaya instinctively dodges his attempt to put the hat on his head. His ever ongoing internal monologue is quickly replaced by a sole feeling of irritation.

“What the hell are you doing?” Izaya hisses out from between his clenched teeth as Shizuo swings the hat around, struggling to catch Izaya.

“Would you just stand still for one fucking second and stop jumping around so much?” Shizuo growls and continues to chase him. They enter into this sort of strange dance, with Shizuo trying to catch him out, and Izaya gracefully avoiding all contact as he hops from one side of the bridge to the other, eventually hopping up and balancing himself on the wooden railing. One misstep and he could very well fall over and into the pond. He wonders what Shizuo will do: try to push him over the edge or maybe catch him if he slips.

“Why are you even trying to give me that stupid hat of yours? I don’t want it,” Izaya says as he stares down at Shizuo. Shizuo is very clearly frustrated and looks like he’s going to push Izaya’s legs any moment now, sending him flying off the railing. Izaya buckles his knees and braces himself as Shizuo swings his arm forward. He’s ready to jump to avoid it, but to his surprise, Shizuo quickly drops his hand before it can even connect with Izaya’s leg.

“Because your entire face is red and you look so damn cold, “ Shizuo huffs out and Izaya, slightly taken by surprise, takes a step back. Except his heel doesn’t connect with more wood and instead is met with empty air. He lets out a little yelp, flailing his arms around and shutting his eyes tight to brace himself for the impact with the ice below.

The impact that never comes.

He reopens his eyes only to see that he still has one foot just barely balancing againt the bridge. Shizuo is looking up at him and tightly clutching his wrist to keep him from falling off completely. With one sharp pull, Izaya comes flying forward and off the bridge, only to fall straight into Shizuo’s chest. Seriously, he’s got to stop doing that, constantly falling against Shizuo.

“Thanks,” he mumbles as he pulls away, pressing both palms against Shizuo’s sturdy pectoral muscles to steady himself. Shizuo doesn’t reply and instead takes the opportunity to plop the hat on top of Izaya’s head, going as far as to drag it down so it’s covering his ears completely. Indeed, the hat does feel warmer, even if it’s made from a cheap fabric that’s surely not up to Izaya’s standards in the slightest. But not as warm as the heat dancing across his fingertips. Quickly, Izaya drops his hands.

“Are you an idiot or what? Don’t you know this is how lice get spread around,” Izaya protests, yet makes no motion to take the hat off. Shizuo rolls his eyes and scoffs right back at him.

“Tch, the only louse around here is you,” he comments as he grabs Izaya by the collar and gives him a little shake. “And the only idiot here is also you. Maybe you should be more careful when jumping around so much, ya shitty flea,” he grumbles and lets Izaya go, allowing him to straighten himself out. Izaya clears his throat.

“You’re the idiot for giving me the hat in the first place. I have a hood, you know. If it gets too cold I can always put that on my head,” Izaya retorts and folds his arms over his chest while making a small ‘hmpf’ sound. 

“Seriously, again with the short term memory loss, huh Shizu-chan? Maybe you should get your brain checked. Though I doubt the MRI machine would even be able to find an actual brain to scan, given how it’s smaller than the size of a pea,” he continues to tease, forcing Shizuo to get even angrier than before. Any moment now and surely he’ll snap, making his little attempt at saving Izaya completely meaningless, because he’ll probably just attempt to throw Izaya over the railing himself.

“You’re such an ungrateful little shit, you know that? If you don’t want it so fucking badly, then be my fucking guest and just take it off,” he grumbles. Izaya quickly brings his hands up to his head to grab the hat, but instead of taking it off, he keeps it in place, refusing to move it.

“Well now that you told me to take it off, I’m not going to,” he whines in an extremely childish way. Shizuo just stares at him, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head as if trying to make sense of Izaya’s thought process. He clearly can’t and quickly gives up on that thought.

“Whatever… fucking flea,” he mutters under his breath and before Izaya can flinch back, he grabs a hold of Izaya’s hood and pulls it over his head and across his eyes, momentarily restricting his field of vision. Geez, this fucking shit again? Izaya quickly swats at his arms and pulls the hood up from his eyes, only to catch a fleeting glimpse of a small smile grazing Shizuo’s otherwise stiff lip. Izaya instantly pouts and puffs up his cheeks like a chipmunk.

“You’re so, so fucking frustrating I-“ he begins. As if fate itself had set up the encounter, a small white flake of snow gently cascades from the sky and lands on the tip of Izaya’s nose. He scrunches up his nose, bothered by the melting droplet. He feels it coming: that little prickle inside his nose. He takes in a few short breaths in rapid succession, squinting his eyes in the process. Then…then…

“Achu,” he sneezes.

It’s a short and high pitched sound that’s far too cute to have been anything his body should be capable of making. It shakes the entirety of his thin frame, forcing his hands up to cover his mouth and his eyes to quickly shut. When he reopens then, he notices Shizuo staring at him again with the back of his hand covering his lips, almost as if he was trying to hold back a laugh. More flakes of snow continue to fall around them, some landing in bits of Izaya’s hair and others falling on his face again. He scrunches his nose again but doesn’t sneeze.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Izaya mumbles out and Shizuo quickly scowls, remembering just who it is he was looking at. He turns away from Izaya and starts walking away towards the exit of the park.

“Hurry your ass along, I don’t want to get caught in the snow,” he calls back to Izaya. Izaya merely stares at his back, walking further and further away. He wonders if he’s genuinely losing his mind, because this is the most docile Izaya had ever witnessed Shizuo acting. The only logical conclusion to the entirety of this day would be that Izaya is still sleeping, completely submerged in his bathtub, positively high on bath salts.

_Stop fighting it._

Izaya bites his bottom lip somewhat tentatively. In the next moment, his body moves by itself, acting on its own accord, devoid of all logic and rationality. It’s a simple action, like an ingrained habitual instinct. He walks up to Shizuo and effortlessly slips his hand back into his, entwining their fingers together and indulging in that same feeling of comfort. It’s only after he’d done it that he realizes just what he had done. By then, it’s too late for Izaya to back out because Shizuo is already clinging to his hand tightly, stringing him along. It feels too natural, as if they’d done it a million times before. As if it was normal for them. Izaya does the only thing he can to maintain his sanity. He mentally tries to justify just why he had gripped Shizuo’s hand in the first place.

He thinks it’s just a way of keeping out of trouble. Surely, if he hadn’t done so, Shizuo would have just trudged straight back to him and grabbed him on his own, since he’d been apparently so adamant about keeping such a close eye on him. This way it’s more convenient. _Yea, that’s it. It’s just easier this way_ , he thinks as he gives Shizuo’s hand a small squeeze.

And Shizuo squeezes his hand back.

-.-.-.-.-

The rest of their walk is quiet and brisk, with Shizuo tugging just a little bit too sharply here and there in order to get out of the heavy snowfall as quickly as possible. By the time they arrive at Izaya’s door, Izaya has a little pile of snow on his hood and shoulders. As for Shizuo, his hair is a little damp with thin strands of blond clinging to his forehead. Despite that, he’d never once asked for his hat back during their entire trek. It’s at this point they unlink their hands from each other, and Izaya turns to face Shizuo, staring up at him with innocent, maroon eyes.

“Well, this is it. My front door. You escorted me all the way home, so you can go now” he says, and all Shizuo can respond with is a dumb:

“Yea.”

He turns and starts walking back towards the elevator. Izaya watches him for a brief moment, then turns to his apartment door and opens it. He steps inside and takes off his coat immediately before hanging it on the coat rack by the door. Afterwards, he takes off that infernal Santa hat. He stares at it for just a moment and rubs his thumb back and forth against the cheap fabric. He bites his bottom lip, throws it on the coat rack next to the coat, and turns back to the front door. Impulsively, he steps out into the hall only to see the elevator doors opening.

“Shizu-chan?” Izaya calls out before Shizuo can enter the elevator. All too quickly, Shizuo whips his head around to look at him.

“Yea?” he asks just a little bit too eagerly. Izaya slowly walks up to him with his palms pressed together in front of his chest.

“Today was, to be honest with you… not completely awful,” he confesses, shifting his eyes to look at Shizuo’s shoes instead of his face.

“I have to say I actually…enjoyed myself, just a tiny bit,” he trails and shrugs his shoulders a little awkwardly and sneaks a peek at Shizuo’s face. For once, it’s stoic.

“So… thank you for that, I suppose. And maybe… maybe we could repeat this experience some other time,” No, no, no, this isn’t part of the plan. What is he saying now? These words coming out of his mouth seem strange and foreign to him, as if his mouth had moved on its own without instructions from his brain. Could it actually be possible to start fresh? To forget all the bad blood between them? His chest just keeps getting tighter and tighter, as if he was being squeezed by a boa constrictor. It hurts… it hurts because he knows it’s not possible.

_Just say it already._

_Disgusting. What I said is disgusting, I know._

“Izaya I-.”

Confusion, bewilderment, a tone Izaya can’t quite put his finger on. Shit, Izaya can’t even _look_ at him, let alone be willing to hear anything he has to say. He’s lost, disoriented. He doesn’t know what to feel. His chest keeps getting tighter and tighter to the point where he feels as if he can’t breathe because goddamn, he really just _can’t_. He’s not usually prone to panicking. He knows how to keep his calm and composure, especially in the presence of others. As if he’d ever permit someone to see what he truly feels inside. His deepest, rawest of emotions. It’s how he avoids getting hurt. It’s how he knows that if he doesn’t act fast and hurt Shizuo first, Shizuo will just end up hurting him.

So, he does the only thing he can do. He starts laughing.

Uncontrollably.

The sound of his maniacal giggling bounces off the walls in a sickening echo as he clutches at his stomach to steady himself. It hurts. It hurts so, so much. Shizuo looks at him as if he were crazy, which at this point, he very well may be, but Izaya just keeps on laughing and laughing until he tears prod at the corners of his eyes.

“Y-you should have seen your face Shizu-chan, really. Your expression was quite hilarious,” Izaya chokes out in between snickers. Realization slowly dawns on Shizuo as he begins to understand Izaya’s actions. Or rather, he understands what Izaya wants him to. He scowls, unimpressed. 

“Did you really think I could ever truly say such gross things and mean them? I can’t believe you actually fell for that haha. Honestly, the whole day was an absolute nightmare and I was just playing along to see how much more sickening it would become. And you did not disappoint. Every single second spent with you was absolutely repulsive. That’s why I hate you. Yea, that’s right. I truly hate Shizu-chan the most,” Izaya rambles while waving his hands around for further emphasis as he watches the shifts in Shizuo’s face, from betrayal, to disgust, to absolute rage.

“Izaya,” the name comes out of Shizuo’s throat in a guttural growl, his voice low and dipped in skin crawling venom. Izaya shudders slightly just from the sheer tone change. Izaya knows he should probably start running, preferably down the emergency stairs since the last thing he wants to do is lead a raging beast like Shizuo back to his apartment. Luckily, he doesn’t have to. Saved by the distorted and muddled ringtone of a phone buzzing in Shizuo’s pocket.

“What’s wrong Shizu-chan? Aren’t you going to answer it?” Izaya says, giving Shizuo a wide smirk as a way to mask the pain he feels inside. Shizuo pulls out his phone slowly, all the while keeping his eyes locked on Izaya. He doesn’t even look away for a second to check the caller ID and blindly tries to press the ‘accept call’ button. Izaya just barely catches a glimpse of the name flickering across the cracked screen before Shizuo lifts the phone to his hear.

Shinra. Fucking Shinra.

So the fucker has time to call Shizuo, but not answer Izaya’s calls or call him back? Izaya’s lip twitches from a bitter scoff just itching to come out, yet he keeps his composure and maintains his persona of indifference.

“What?” Shizuo spits out into the phone. He nods along to whatever Shinra may be saying, but his attention is elsewhere, his mind distracted by staring down Izaya and glaring intently. Izaya steps forward and tentatively places his hands on Shizuo’s biceps, then starts to push as if trying to shove him into the elevator. 

“Alright, fun is over, you can go back to the little hovel you call a home now,” Izaya says in a sing song way and despite being met with some initial resistance, Shizuo complies and steps in the elevator. He pulls the phone away from his ear for just one second to whisper three little words to him just quietly enough so Shinra wouldn’t hear.

“Fuck you, Izaya.”

The elevator doors then come to a close. As soon as they do, Izaya lets out a deep sigh and drops his false persona, finally allowing his face to take on that twisted scowl he’d been longing to adopt for a while now. He drags his feet back to his apartment and closes the door behind him. He looks at the red hat on the coat rack. Dejectedly, he plucks it off the hanger and holds it tightly against his chest. He leans back against the door and slides down against it until he’s sitting on the floor with his knees pressed to his chest. He stretches out the fabric of the hat and looks at it almost longingly before burying his face into it and inhaling deeply. He closes his eyes. The faint smell of tobacco mixed in with cheap shampoo. An awful smell that at the same time smells like the best thing in the world.

Familiar, comfortable.

It smells like Shizuo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get it? Magic carp-et? Koi = carp? This whole chapter is about word play :D
> 
>  *** Author’s note:** here Izaya says koi (鯉) as in the fish, but the word koi (恋) also means love in Japanese. I wanted to kind of play around with words and use koi as a suffix instead of chan. So essentially, it’s a slight play on words in which Izaya accidentally ends up saying “Farewell, my love”  
> I do hope it makes sense orz


	12. Frosty the Headless Snowman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome back to Izaya is a disaster  
> In this week's episode, watch him be an absolute dumbass  
> Thank you, come again

For the next few days, Izaya is plagued by constantly resurfacing memories of Christmas. He tries calling Shinra a few times, if only to talk to him about this issue he seemingly had very little knowledge about, but to no avail. Apart from that, he stops trying to do anything. He just feels …tired. Exhausted even. He takes a seat back from work and essentially cuts himself off from the rest of the world, hardly leaving his house and interacting with anyone, stuck solely with himself and his thoughts. He wonders what Shizuo had been thinking at that time, stuck in the entrance of the elevator compartment. What had he thought of Izaya’s words, his actions. It’s probably the constant recollection of those memories that has Izaya so fatigued in the first place, yet he can’t help but think about them.

At night, he has trouble sleeping and barely gets in more than five hours at a time. During the day, he just feels empty, with no drive to actually do a single damn thing. Not even eat, not even read, not even people watch. The only thing he manages to do before the new year is clean, and even that is a pain in his ass, with the cleaning spanning over five days. Not that he has much to do in the first place, since his apartment is generally kept tidy at all times. But each time he picks up the vacuum and turns it on, he ends up only vacuuming one square of carpet, getting a headache, and promptly turning it off. So, he gives up.

He’s too sad and lethargic, so he ends up plopping down on the couch in front of the TV watching reruns of Doraemon…at 3am. With a bucket of ice cream in his hands. Imagine such a sight, the great Orihara Izaya glued to his couch, his eyes aimlessly fixated on the TV, with the flashing screen being the only source of light in the room. Him, shoveling spoon after spoon of overly sweet, frozen dairy products into his mouth. It’s absolutely depressing. Pathetic, at best. He scoffs, eating another spoonful. Shizuo cravings. Fucking Shizuo cravings. Yet another thorn in his side, spawned by none other than that protozoan. 

“All because of Shizu-chan” he murmurs and licks his spoon clean. He feels like throwing up at this point but keeps eating, not even wanting to think that perhaps the cause of his low energy mood could be caused by something other than Shizuo. He snorts, pushing a certain past conversation with Shinra out of his mind as he dips his spoon in the bucket of ice cream only to find…it’s empty.

Oh. Well then.

“I really do wish you would drop dead already, stupid Shizu-chan. Might spare me my own death via hyperglycemic shock,” he mutters to no one in particular and stares at the empty tub of ice cream before him. He feels even more sluggish now than he did before. Even if he is that tired, he can’t sleep. He’d stayed up past midnight anyway because of those damned bells, yet even after they’d ceased ringing, he still hadn’t been able to fall asleep.

What is he even doing? He’s Orihara Izaya. He shouldn’t be off moping on the first day of the New Year like this. He should be out there starting the year off with a bang. Preferably an actual bang, hopefully blowing Shizuo to smithereens by igniting a match into a room full of propane gas. And suddenly, he feels like going out, dancing around, being anywhere but his own stuffy house.

In retrospect, it had probably been a very bad idea to go out in the middle of the night because as Izaya soon realizes, it’s cold, it’s wet, and he’s absolutely alone with the dim street lights barely illuminating the surrounding area. Everything is closed as well on account of the New Year, so actually…he has nothing to do.

He drags his feet aimlessly through a thin blanket of snow that had accumulated over the night. Smooth, pure, untouched. Izaya is the first to taint it with his feet. For some reason, he even finds some semblance of joy in kicking the white powder around, even if his serotonin levels aren’t up to their usual standards. His aimless wandering leads him to the front steps of a small shrine that quickly catches his eye. Izaya isn’t particularly religious, but since religion is a positively human thing to believe in, he’s absolutely fascinated by it.

This time, it’s not his obsession with humanity that has him curious about the premises. If his life held any semblance of normalcy to it, then perhaps he could have been one of those kids that would frequent such shrines with his family in order to pray for a good year. Now as an adult, he could very well do these things if he so desired to. He debates whether he should or not. After all, if monsters exist, and if soulmates exist, who knows what other otherworldly forces are out there?

Izaya scoffs and smiles bitterly.

No.

He’s not that type of person after all. He turns on his heel and walks in the opposite direction, with his hood hung low over his head. Things like that are all just a waste of time and a waste of mental energy. Being filled with false hope of better days that will never come…who is he kidding?

He walks a few more paces, continuing his pointless stroll, until he stumbles across a small park. The grass and pavement is also covered in a veil of pure white. He scowls and crouches down to get a closer look. Truly, such a smooth layer of untouched fluff. Izaya lifts his hand up, spreads out his fingers, and quickly brings his palm down, tainting the snow with his hand print. And then he does it again, and again, with each hand print turning his scowl closer and closer into a smile. It’s almost…fun. Even if his hand is cold, it still has him giggling excitedly.

Soon enough, there’s no more space left for his hand to go, so he shifts his sights to a new objective. He starts to gather piles of snow into one lump, forming each lump into tight snowballs. One, two, thee; all stacked on top of each other from the biggest to the smallest. He stares at his little creation, a miniature snowman with no eyes, no mouth, or arms. How sad. Quickly, Izaya digs around to the pavement where he finds a couple of sticks and a few small rocks. He puts the sticks in first, one on each side of the torso. He puts in one stone into the snowman’s face and is about to about to put the other one in when a pair of shoes comes into his field of vision.

“Just my luck. Figures you’d be the first person I see at the start of the New Year.”

Izaya doesn’t need to look up to know who’d just spoken to him. He knows that voice well. His lips curl into a indignant smile.

“Likewise, Shizu-chan,” Izaya answers and sticks the other rock into the snowman’s face. There, now the little abomination has two mismatched eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Shizuo abruptly asks. Izaya tilts his head to look up at him.

“Isn’t it obvious? Making a snowman,” he murmurs, his voice coming off as tired. Shizuo pokes at the little snowman’s head with the tip of his shoe, and Izaya instantly scowls.

“Don’t touch it, I don’t need you ruining yet another thing in my life,” he grumbles and promptly swats at Shizuo’s leg, irked by the fact that the former bartender would even dare to do such a thing as defile his precious creation.

Irritated, Shizuo brings his foot back and kicks the snowman’s head straight at Izaya, forcing the latter to shut his eyes and jerk his head back as the cold mush hits his face.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Shizuo mutters as Izaya wipes the snow off his cheeks.

“You know Shizu-chan, I always knew I would be the one to turn you into a murderer, but I didn’t know it would be like this. I can’t believe you would go so far as to kill an innocent snowman,” he sighs.

“A snowman is not a person.”

“He was my _son._ I worked so hard to create him. What if he came to life like in the cartoon? What then, Shizuo? You could have killed him for real,” Izaya cries, exaggerating the pronunciation of his words to the point they become comically overdramatic. Shizuo crouches down and grabs a pile of snow into his palms, forming it into a tight ball as he grumbles something about stupid fleas and stupid snowmen under his breath before plopping the ball on top of the snowman body.

“There, ya happy now?” he asks. Izaya stares at the little misshapen ball with narrowed eyes.

“No. It’s ugly and deformed. Figures it would look like a monster, coming from you” he says and picks up the snowball before throwing it at Shizuo’s face. It lands just under his chin, hitting his torso. Shizuo stares at the clump of falling snow, then quickly shoots his gaze back to Izaya.

“Fucking flea,” he growls and Izaya sticks out his tongue.

“Payback, Shizu-chan” Izaya teases, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he watches Shizuo stand up and walk over to a nearby park bench. Mischief quickly turns to surprise as Shizuo picks the bench up. Izaya figures that he will throw it straight at him, so he prepares to direct all of his energy into his legs to try and avoid the impact. Instead, Shizuo walks over to him and flings the entirety of the settled snow from the top of the bench straight at Izaya, covering him from head to toe in white dust.

“Wow Shizuo, you really are just the epitome of maturity, aren’t you?” Izaya groans as he stands up and starts to dust the snow off his frame.

“Says the fucking baby making a snowman and calling it his son,” Shizuo retort, and Izaya looks at him as if he’d just said something incredibly stupid. Which, in Izaya’s perspective, he always says something stupid.

“Why are you even here? Surely you have better things to do with your life than killing innocent snowmen,” Izaya inquires calmly, tilting his head to the side and shoving his hands in his pockets. Shizuo shrugs. He seems a lot more mellow than Izaya had expected him to be. Well, it is early in the morning and there’s nothing that would actually warrant Shizuo getting angry.

“Dunno. Couldn’t sleep. Felt like taking a walk. Then I saw you. Was gonna come and kick your ass but…” he trails somewhat nonchalantly and Izaya nods his head eagerly, prompting him to continue.

“But?”

“But you were just building that stupid snowman, so what’s the point?” he confesses. Izaya nods, as if in understanding, but truthfully he doesn’t understand. He never knows what’s going on in that stupid, blond head of his nor does he know why Shizuo had suddenly decided to act a lot more pacifistic, for once living up to his endlessly repeated phrase of “I hate violence”.

“Right… Have you gone to the shrine yet? To wish for good luck and all that,” Izaya asks, quickly changing the topic. It’s not like he’s particularly interested in Shizuo’s reply. He’s just trying to make small talk, testing the waters and trying to break the ice so that Shizuo may be a little more trusting and relaxed around him. As much fun as it is to tango with the devil, Izaya is too tired to show off his moves tonight.

“Yea, I did. Though what good did that do me, if the first person I see is you?” Shizuo grumbles. Indeed, Izaya shares his sentiments. This isn’t how he’d envisioned his year starting. With a deep sigh, Izaya tilts his head downwards and walks up to the park bench Shizuo had previously emptied of all snow. The wood is still cold on his butt, but at least it isn’t wet.

“Actually, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” Izaya confesses. Hs voice is calm and collected, but really he’s still nervous on the inside. Whatever connects them to each other is a tricky matter to discuss, but if Izaya is going to do something about it, he needs to find out as much information as he can. So, he pats the empty space next to him, beckoning Shizuo to come and sit beside him.

And Shizuo sits.

They keep their distance, of course, with enough space between them to fit in one other person. Izaya watches as Shizuo places both hands on either side of him, with one hand resting halfway between them. Shizuo looks up at the night sky, and Izaya falters for a moment, just glancing at Shizuo’s palm and longing to touch it. He bites his lip and shakes his head slightly before shifting his eyes to also look up at the heavens. The stars are out and there’s not a single cloud in the sky. Despite the light pollution coming from the city, Izaya can still make out a few constellations.

“Do you see that star up there? The bright one? Polaris, at the very tip of the Ursa Minor. If you can find it, you will always know which way is North…” Izaya trails. Alright, maybe not exactly what he’d wanted to talk about in the first place but it’s the first thing that pops out of his mouth. Shizuo looks at him skeptically.

“You want to talk to me about stars?” he asks, and Izaya can sense a hint of irritation creeping in. Well, stars, fate, whatever the future may hold, and all those other things. Izaya thinks that perhaps he would rather talk about the stars than supposed destiny. But if he’s going to get anywhere in his research, there are topics he needs to address.

Here goes nothing.

While Shizuo is still stuck looking up at the sky, Izaya reaches over and places his palm over Shizuo’s hand. He squeezes it automatically, closing his eyes momentarily as he feels a pleasant warmth seep into the pads of his freezing fingers. Shizuo is aware of his actions but doesn’t flinch away from his touch.

“Tell me, what do you feel when we…touch?”

In this moment, this moment of pure anticipation, Izaya feels as if his heart may as well just burst. He isn’t sure what kind of answer he’s even hoping for. Anything to make himself feel better, really.

“Your skinny, bony fingers. Am I supposed to feel anything else?”

A confirmation that Shizuo doesn’t feel a thing.

On the one hand, it should be a good thing, shouldn’t it? If Shizuo doesn’t feel the same way then Shinra’s speculation of them would be false. Which would mean that there isn’t, in fact, anything between Izaya and Shizuo. No red string of fate tied around their pinkies, linking them together.

On the other hand, it would mean Izaya is the one going absolutely insane, getting the short end of the stick each time. It would mean there is something going on for him to act this way, and he would have to figure out just what it is. Izaya isn’t sure which of the options is worse, but he’s sure if Shizuo’s reply had been any different, he would feel just as dejected.

“You don’t feel anything else? Or maybe it feels different than before?”

Shizuo shakes his head and it’s easy to tell he’s getting annoyed again, given by his narrowed brown and brisk reply.

“The fuck am I supposed to feel? It’s the same as always.”

Izaya quickly retracts his hand almost as if he’d been hurt by that statement. Theoretically, he shouldn’t be. He knows that, but he’d lost control over his emotions a long time ago.

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. Because in fact, he doesn’t know. None of it makes sense at all.

“Tell me then, what about other aspects of your life? Are there any changes in that? Eating habits, sleeping patterns, weird mood swings?” he then badgers. Surely at least if Shizuo is experiencing those it will make him feel somewhat better.

“The hell you need to know that for?” Shizuo responds and shifts in his seat, looking mildly uncomfortable. Izaya is starting to grow increasingly frustrated by Shizuo’s refusal to cooperate with him. Always the same old routine. Why can’t Shizuo, for once, just indulge him? Why can’t Shizuo, for once, put that pea sized brain of his to good use and actually think about why Izaya is asking in the first place? Such seemingly trivial questions, surely there must be a good reason for them. So why can’t he just answer?

“Because obviously, very clearly and obviously I’m trying to get as much information on you as possible so I can use it against you. Obviously, what you eat and how you sleep is _totally_ going to help me with that, so won’t you please just assist me in planning your murder? _”_ Izaya says sarcastically with a bitter undertone to his words. Shizuo narrows his eyes and carefully takes out a cigarette.

“I’m not going to answer any of your questions if you’re going to be a dick about it,” he mumbles out, his voice somewhat distorted due to holding the cigarette between his lips. Izaya is slowly starting to think that perhaps this is some form of karma. Had he lived his life that wrongfully to warrant such a woeful situation to be stuck in? Having to do this with Shizuo, out of all people. No, not even people. More like, out of all beings in this God forsaken universe.

“I wouldn’t be a dick about it if you just answer my question. So, can you? For once. It’s important,” Izaya says somewhat solemnly. He’d be lying if he said his pride isn’t slightly hurt from practically begging Shizuo to comply with him. Shizuo looks at him, really looks at his face to the point it has Izaya shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“I don’t know,” he says and blows a puff of smoke into Izaya’s face, forcing the informant to instantly flinch back, his nose scrunching due to the disgusting smell of the cigarette.

“What?” Izaya chokes out between a small cough as he tries to expel any smoke from his lungs.

“I said I don’t know. That’s my answer.”

Izaya’s eyebrows furrow together and his lips press into a thin line. His frustration is at its limit.

“What do you _mean_ you don’t know. It’s a simple question. Think Shizuo. Just think for one damn second, think of what I’m asking of you,” Izaya snaps, and so does Shizuo, with the intensity of his rage quickly mirroring Izaya’s.

“What the fuck do you want me to say? What the hell is this even about? Why do you have to be so damn cryptic about every damn thing that comes out of your damn, flea mouth? For once, Izaya. For one god damn time, why won’t you just tell me what the fuck do you actually want from me?” he retaliates as he quickly shoots up from the bench to stand, looking down at Izaya.

And Izaya refuses to be looked down on. Mimicking Shizuo’s actions, he quickly bolts up as well, except after he’s on his feet again, he jumps up on the bench they’d just been sitting on and looks down at Shizuo. What _does_ he want? It’s as good a question as any. His breath is harsh and his lungs burn from the cold and his first thought is that all he wants is to be warm. That same warmth that has him losing his mind. All he wants is to _stop thinking about it_.

“ _I_ don’t want anything from you. I don’t want anything _to do_ with you. Yet for some reason, here we are, stuck together for the past ten, long years. And no matter what I do, it seems that I just can’t shake you off because you know why? You know why your very existence continually plagues my otherwise perfect life? Because, get this, we’re-“ Izaya stops himself for a moment. A slight hesitation, prompting Shizuo to take a step closer to him, staring up at Izaya with darkened eyes, and Izaya glaring down at him with narrowed red rimmed ones.

“ _What?_ Just spit it out already,” Shizuo hisses through gritted teeth, fist clenched at his sides and just itching to break that park bench Izaya is standing on, if only to knock him off his high horse. It’s almost as if their anger is shared between them, hopping from one to the other, each time getting stronger and stronger. Izaya knows he shouldn’t even be getting this angry but it’s as if Shizuo’s irritation is making him feel just as equally annoyed. He should be happy at his feat of making Shizuo angry, yet what he needs to do is defuse the situation.

“ _Shinra. Shinra_ thinks… it’s because we’re…soulmates,” Izaya finally utters that awful word he’d been dreading bringing up the entire night. Shizuo tilts his head back slightly and Izaya can tell from the look in his eyes that he’s deep in thought. He takes another drag of his cigarette. It’s almost finished by now. 

“That’s-“  
  
“Ridiculous, I know. I know that. It’s absurd, and yet… and yet all this shit keeps on happening to me, it feels like I’m losing my mind. Like _you’re_ making me lose my mind,” Izaya breathes out and watches the shifts in Shizuo’s expression as the gears turn in his head, processing what Izaya had just said. He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out, as if he’s too stunned or simply doesn’t know what to say, and Izaya supposes that’s expected; being hit with such a ludicrous claim can make one be at a loss for words. So, Izaya waits patiently for Shizuo to gather his thoughts. For the protozoan, this comes in the form of finishing that god awful cigarette of his. He inhales the toxic air for clarity, and although Izaya had otherwise been appalled by the putrid smell of smoke, he finds that now it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. On the contrary, he feels drawn to the harmful assortment of chemicals wrapped up in pristine white paper.

As Shizuo pulls the cigarette away from his lips, Izaya leans forward and gently pries it from him, his frozen fingers brushing over the addicting warmth of Shizuo’s hand for just a split second. At this point, he could very well say that it is addicting, just like the nicotine fix he’s so desperately craving. 

Before Shizuo can get his cigarette back, Izaya takes it and places it between his cracked lips. He inhales sharply, smoke infiltrating his oral cavity. Shizuo watches him intensely with an expression of pure shock and astonishment.

“Since when do you smoke?” He asks. With a smug smile, Izaya breathes the smoke into his lungs only to…  
  
He reels over forward and begins coughing uncontrollably. His lungs burn with an unfamiliar sensation and he tries to expel the toxic air out, desperate to replace it with oxygen so that he may once again breathe. His tongue tastes bitter and he scrunches his face in disgust as if he’d just eaten something completely putrid. 

Shizuo awkwardly steps closer and wraps his arms around him in order to give him a tentative pat on the back. His action is somewhat helpful in expelling the toxic air out of his lungs, even if for Izaya, it just feels as if someone is throwing bricks at him. He allows himself to lean forward and actually rests his forehead against Shizuo’s shoulder, too drained to even think about why he shouldn’t be doing such a thing in the first place.

“Since apparently I also _love_ sugar and dairy and constantly feel the urge to break things and…” Izaya stops speaking for a moment as he catches a whiff of some distinct smell. Something familiar to him. He sniffs at it Shizuo’s neck in order to get a better picture of what it may be, only for Shizuo to roughly grab him by the shoulders and push him back.

“What the fuck?” he asks and all Izaya can do is just stare at him, wide eyed.

“Why… do you smell like my favorite soap?”

At this moment, Izaya thinks that there may be some hope yet that Shizuo is just as miserable as he is, subjected to the same form of torturous anguish. It’s such a simple thing, the scent of soap, but it’s very expensive soap. Very, very expensive soap Izaya doubts Shizuo would ever be able to afford. Not to mention, the scent doesn’t suit him at _all_. There isn’t any reason Shizuo would ever buy such a product, which has Izaya going down a slippery slope, delving further into the mentality of “surely, Shizuo must be just as crazy as me”.

Or maybe he’s just grasping at straws.

“It was on sale, smelled nice, and I bought is. Ya have a problem with my fucking soap now, flea?”

Still gripping his shoulders, Shizuo moves his hands to grasp Izaya’s collar, sharply tugging at his coat and consequently lifting him off the park bench. Izaya gives off a small yelp and wiggles his feet, desperate for contact with the ground. He grabs onto Shizuo’s wrists to try and ease his grip, since the coat is now uncomfortably digging into his throat.

“N-no, look. Let me just…start over. Put me down and I’ll explain,” Izaya finally relents, casting aside his pride. The lengths he has to go to...

So Shizuo puts him down, and Izaya tells him the truth, and nothing but the truth. He starts with talking about the desk, how he’d broken his finger, the strange dreams he’d been having, the incident with the bookshelf, and not to mention the way Shizuo’s touch feels different (though Izaya explicitly avoids mentioning that it, in fact, feels _good_ ). Shizuo, for the most part, nods along to everything he says without complaint. At the end of his speech, Shizuo finally gives Izaya the answer he’d been waiting for.

“I guess I’ve been going through similar things. I’ve had this weird craving for tuna for a while now… ”

Izaya isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh or cry. Laugh, because he’s not going crazy after all. Cry, because it means Shinra’s hypothesis is right. The only aspect of this whole soulmate thing he finds comfort in is the fact that all these things are just bodily symptoms part of an affliction, as he likes to call it. A disease that he will hopefully be able to find a cure to. All that he has to do is identify the cause of said ailment and eliminate it.

“Why is it like this?” Shizuo asks expectantly, as if reading Izaya’s mind. As if Izaya even has the answer to begin with. He shrugs his shoulders. His best bet is…

“If I had to guess…” He trails. A moment of hesitation, because he has a feeling Shizuo will not like the theory he has to present.

“It’s because of that girl of yours.”

For a moment, Shizuo looks confused, trying to decipher what Izaya is even on about in the first place. 

“Who? _Vorona?_ ” he finally asks, and Izaya groans in frustration because of how long it had taken Shizuo to reach that conclusion.

“Yes, exactly. Her. This all started because of her.”  
  
“Don’t drag other people into your own problems.”  
  
“It’s not _my problem,_ it’s _our_ problem,” Izaya snaps, and Shizuo snaps right back at him.

“It’s not _her_ problem so don’t fucking involve other people in your own shit.”

“Your relationship with her is what started this entire bloody mess to begin with, so _you_ need to take responsibility for that and cut off contact with her,” Izaya states, crossing his arms and giving Shizuo a look that could only read as that of a parent scolding a child. Izaya can already see the answer in Shizuo’s eyes. No. Hell to the no, that must be what he wants to say. Whether it be his attachment to her, or just his own selfish desire to annoy Izaya. Whatever it is, Izaya is sure Shizuo will refuse to comply. 

“No. That makes no fucking sense,” Shizuo responds.

“Life doesn’t make sense,” Izaya argues right back at him, his tone low and resentful.

“It’s just a series of meaningless events we try to give meaning to. And we stick to routines to feel safe.”

As per usual, Shizuo looks at Izaya with great skepticism, never quite able to understand what’s on his mind or what he means.

“What the hell are you saying now?”

“I’m saying, you need to do this so we can go back to how we were. To hating each other, to always trying to kill each other. Isn’t that what you want too?” Izaya pesters, trying his best to sound persuasive but just coming off as borderline desperate. To his surprise, Shizuo’s retort comes out as being far too calm.

“Is that what _you_ want?” 

“Of course! That’s exactly what I want,” Izaya scoffs.

“I hate you so much I can barely even stand to look at you, and yet I can’t escape you because of this…this _thing_ between us. I absolutely detest it. I refuse to let it dictate my feelings for you.”

But Shizuo should already know that. He should know, so why does he look so…so…sad? So betrayed, as if Izaya had just taken his switchblade and thrust it straight into his heart; a sight Izaya would otherwise loved to have seen, yet was positively unamused by right now. A strange feeling worms itself into the pit of Izaya’s stomach and he has a flashback to six days ago. And suddenly, he’s standing in front of the elevator again, with his laughs echoing around the hallway.

“Don’t tell me… That’s not what you want? What, you actually want to entertain this preposterous idea? To _mend_ our twisted relationship? Don’t make me laugh, Shizu-chan. Such a thing would be absolutely asinine,” he mocks. He should shut up now. He should definitely shut up now. He should have shut his damn mouth five sentences ago.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Shizuo, by now, is seething with rage. There it is, the anger Izaya is so used to seeing. The anger that is a part of their usual routine. The anger that reminds him just how much of a monster Shizuo truly is. Izaya merely smirks, a mocking sort of sneer. The whole situation is so bitterly hilarious in itself.

“Me? There’s nothing wrong with me. You’re the one who has a problem and refuses to do what I ask. Like always, Shizu-chan is too stupid to think rationally. Do us both a favor and cut that girl out of your life so I can stop experiencing the living hell that is being somehow emotionally and physically _bound_ to you.”

That’s all Izaya wants.

That’s all he _thinks_ he wants.

But Shizuo, being Shizuo, always has to get in the way of his plans.

“No.”

People are self serving creatures. They are selfish and egotistical, and will often favor convenience above all else. Shizuo, however, is not human. Only a mad man would sacrifice his own wellbeing out of pure spite. A madman, or a man in love.

“What do you mean ‘No’? Is this girl really that important to you?” Izaya says with so much malice, it’s a wonder his lithe frame can even fit all that animosity. 

“No. I’m not going to do that. Yea, Vorona is important to me but that’s not-“

Izaya lifts his hand up to stop Shizuo from uttering any further words. He doesn’t want to hear it, this mushy confession of love. Already, the mere phrase “Yea, Vorona is important” has him feeling as if a weight of a thousand bricks had been dropped on his head. His temples are already starting to hurt, his thoughts becoming somewhat muddled. In a sense, it’s a weight that brings Izaya down to his knees, with the illusion of the perfect world shattering around him. 

“How typical of you, Shizu-chan, letting your emotions dictate your choices instead of your brain. Do you even have a brain up there? Because it doesn’t seem like you do,” Izaya says, his voice now starting to border on shouting.

“Is that all you can do? Keep shoving insults in my face and calling me stupid?” Shizuo shouts back and takes a step closer to Izaya, with his fist already raised and ready to strike.

“Because that’s all that you are. Just a stupid protozoan who always gets in my way. And I’d love nothing more than for you to disappear, even if I have to be the one to make you,” Izaya huffs out in a hurry. All too quickly, he shoves his hands inside his pockets and pulls out his switchblade (he’d gotten a new one since Shizuo had broken the last one). He lunges forward, pointing it straight at Shizuo’s ribcage, only to have Shizuo intercept it with his palm. He grabs a hold of Izaya’s hand, fingers closing in to the point Izaya is forced to drop the weapon, uttering out a sharp cry of pain as Shizuo applies more and more pressure to his hand.

“Get out of here,” Shizuo spits out as he tugs on Izaya’s hand and pulls him closer so that he can stare deep into his eyes with one of the deathliest glares he’d ever given Izaya. Izaya flinches back slightly, his heart beating fast and his breath low and unsteady. Yet he doesn’t back down. Instead, he challenges Shizuo’s authority.

“I’m not going anywhere until you do what I told you to,” he says through gritted teeth. A low growl rumbles from the depths of Shizuo’s throat.

“Get. The. Hell. Out,” he repeats, but Izaya refuses to listen. In that sense, they’re much more alike than it seems. Both too stubborn to concede.

“No. It’s a public park. I don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t want to be near me then _you_ leave,” Izaya retorts. In the following seconds, Shizuo proceeds to glare at Izaya. Just glare, no movements. Then, he drops his arm and takes a step back.

“Then I will.”

What. The. Fuck?

Izaya is left absolutely stunned and at a loss of words. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out at first except for the thin cloud of condensed air slipping out past his pale lips. At first, Izaya isn’t sure he’d even heard correctly, until Shizuo turns on his heel and starts walking away in the opposite direction from him.

“N-no, Shizu-chan. You can’t just do that,” He shouts, taking a few light jogs to chase after him. He gets close enough to tug at Shizuo’s coat sleeve, but Shizuo merely jerks his arm and sends Izaya stumbling back, making him nearly lose his balance.

“You can’t just _leave me_ like this. You can’t! This is so fucking unfair! Why? Why me? Why am I the one who has to be stuck with such a stupid, moronic, brainless, irrational monster like you?” He screams, stomping his foot so hard against the ground, he can feel an unpleasant jolt shoot up his leg. Maybe. Maybe if Izaya can prod at Shizuo’s temper and unleash that ever flowing anger, then maybe he can force him to stop.

“I wish you would just die, Shizu-chan. I truly wish you could just drop dead and die. You and that girl. I wish you both drop dead. Then all of my problems would disappear.”  
  
And indeed, Shizuo does stop. He does turn. And he does face Izaya with the most sorrow filled expression Izaya has even seen him make.

“Goodbye, Izaya.” *  
  
Those words are like a knife to his heart, twisting and turning with each step Shizuo takes away from him. The same knife Izaya had tried to plunge into Shizuo’s chest, ricochet and hit him back, straight in between the ribs. His legs go numb. He can’t make himself move even one inch. He feels completely powerless. Too powerless to stop Shizuo, and he hates it. He hates how his body trembles and how his lip quivers.

“S-shizu-chan?” He asks, still in disbelief over Shizuo’s actions. The scene in front of him is like a fever induced mirage. He opens his mouth once again to shout, yet his own words are like a muffled blur.

“Shizu-chan! I’m talking to you! Stop.”

But to no avail. Shizuo walks off, with the rising sun now illuminating his tall frame, as well as the absolutely petrified expression on Izaya’s face.

“Heiwajima Shizuo!”

Even the usage of Shizuo’s full name does nothing to stop the receding blur of Shizuo’s shadow from shrinking in size.

“Not you too.”

The words come out in a whisper, but even if Izaya had been speaking at a normal volume, Shizuo wouldn’t have heard him.

He’s already long gone. 

“Don’t leave me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Freaking “abayo” ketsu flashbacks all over again


	13. Izaya’s 100% Foolproof 10-Step Guide on How to Get Rid of Heiwajima Shizuo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I am back. Thank you [ Kagura ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingKagura/pseuds/KingKagura) for all the help ^^ Thanks to you, now the fic actually has an actual underlying plot instead of two idiots running around unable to express their feelings  
> Also, I added some minor edits to some chapters but nothing that would inherently impact the comprehension of the story~
> 
> This time:  
> \- Karma is a bitch  
> \- Some new OC content (that I hope is ok?)  
> \- Where the real canon plot divergence starts lmaoo

_“Stupid Shizuo, stupid Shizuo, stupid Shizuo.”:_ An amalgamation of alliteration Izaya keeps slyly hissing out in constant repetition. The cravings? Still there. The nightmares? Still leave him in despair. As for his recent plans? He’s been trying to come up with a more ‘permanent’ solution to his Shizuo problem. After all, this is what he gets for crossing the one and only, Orihara Izaya. This is the price, death by his hand. No matter the consequence.

Because he absolutely hates Shizuo.

Which is why he wants to do everything in his power to eliminate him. 

Izaya’s plan, to put it simply, can be summarized in ten easy steps (for viewer convenience).

A 10 step guide on how to get rid of Heiwajima Shizuo:

Step 1: Get a gang  
Step 2: Rile them up  
Step 3: Convince them to go after none other than Heiwajima Shizuo  
Step 4: Pray Shizuo gets shot. Or stabbed. Or both. And dies.

If Shizuo doesn’t die, proceed onto...

Step 5: Lure Shizuo into a construction site  
Step 6: Fill the air with toxic, flammable gas  
Step 7: Shizu-chan go boom boom  
Step 8: ???  
Step 9: No more Shizu-chan = Happy Izaya = Profit???  
Step 10: Buy ootoro to celebrate (Very crucial step, do NOT skip)

Of course the plan itself is a lot more complex than that. He has at least some stroke of luck, because for months now, he’s been working on a little side project. Now might be the time to put it to good use, even if that hadn’t been his initial intention at all.

It had all started a few months ago before his ‘life changing’ (so to say) encounter with Shizuo that had spawned the entirety of the mess he is in now. Much like the time Izaya worked closely with Kida Masaomi (only to later abandon him in his most desperate time of need), Izaya had reached out to another character he deemed interesting: the self proclaimed leader of a small gang, a young man going by the name Midoriya. 

At first, the little gang had been a complete mess. Disorganized and with no clear hierarchy. Just a bunch of rowdy hooligans doing whatever they pleased. This had often resulted in them getting targeted by other gangs, or worse yet, the police. Green Dragons, they’d titled themselves. As if Ikebukuro didn’t have enough color gangs already. Ah but they’d thought themselves to be so clever, so unique; the green being a mix of yellow and blue, a symbolism of wanting to surpass both the Blue Squares and the Yellow Scarves that had preceded them. 

The dragon part they’d justified as something poetic, exuding the aura of being great and powerful. Izaya hadn’t even bothered to mention that in reality, a Green Dragon is a mythological spirit, though mostly associated with protection. Not at all what they’d been going for when picking their name, but it hardly matters. Once Izaya’s done with them they will have their rise to infamy. (And like all great civilizations, they would eventually come to their ruin).

Back then, Izaya had appeared to them like a messiah under the guise of Nakura (of course) without revealing his face, and only messaged them without speaking directly. They’d been getting picked on by some rogue Dollars members. More specifically, the ones that the Dollars’ leader wouldn’t approve of. They would eventually serve their purpose, as Izaya would use them to feed the fire within the corrupt Dollars, forcing Mikado to go to extremes with his purge.

Izaya’s whole front revolves around pretending to be an ex-Dollars member who’d been exploited for his talents and is seeking revenge. They’d fallen for it far too easily, but Izaya had still warily kept his distance, until he’d noticed just how overly dependent on him they’d become. ‘Trust’ had to go both ways, after all. For him, his ‘trust’ had come in the form of feeding them additional information, making them even more reliant on his expertise.

Izaya had spent months guiding them; telling them things like where police are most likely to be stationed, which areas are the busiest and which ones are more secluded, how they should organize themselves, etc. So when he’d finally made his return to Ikebukuro, it had been pleasant sight for him to see the hints of green hiding in plain sight. Still a long way to go, but it had been a start.

Until Shizuo had to ruin it all. It was because of him that Izaya had lost both the time and the drive to continue with his project. Things like the destruction of his precious computer, his restlessness and lack of focus, and not to mention the time he’d wasted on being with Shizuo combined with the time spent moping around his apartment. All of it had certainly been a hindrance to his original plan, but ever since Shizuo had abandoned him like that, he’s had more time to reestablish his contact with the Green Dragons.

Only to find them in complete disarray again.

They’d gotten too cocky, too absorbed in their power, believing they could accomplish even greater things without Izaya’s guidance. How foolish of them to think so. They’d failed, and Izaya had been left picking up the pieces.

Slowly and steadily throughout the course of the week, Izaya had focused on rebuilding his relationship with them, chatting up the young Midoriya kid in order to twist him into his desired shape. Now he has him eating out of the palm of his hand again, and it’s time to move on to the second part of his master plan. 

It’s time for everything to come together.

So, he types up his next message.

[Ah well, if you want to prove that you rule the city then I suppose you would really have to show people who’s boss. You would have to do something extravagant to make sure people would never mess with you]

He writes. His language may be casual and colloquial but it’s better that way. They already see him as a ‘friend’, a tight knit relationship if you will.

 **[And what would that be, Nakura-san?]** is the reply.

Izaya smirks at his computer screen. His fingers fly fast over his keyboard.

[Challenging a strong icon of Ikebukuro to a fight and winning could be a possibility. Someone who people revere as being unbeatable. If you can manage to beat them, the whole town will respect you]

**[Who then? Who is the strongest?]**

[That’s always a tricky question. Of course you guys are ^^ But you can’t fight yourselves, can you?]

A little ego boosting to butter them up, before proceeding to ask the impossible.

[I suppose there’s that bulky guy who works in Russia Sushi. He looks pretty strong, but he never fights. Ah, there’s also one other guy. People talk about him a lot. Blond hair, bartender. What was his name again? Hanejima? Harujima?]

**[Heiwajima Shizuo?]**

[Yes! That’s the one]

**[Can we really take him down?]**

[Totally! I bet he’s not even as strong as people make him out to be]

**[I don’t know, people say he’s capable of ripping up light poles from the ground]**

[Have you seen him do it yourselves?]

**[No but…]**

[I bet it’s all just baseless rumors then. How can a normal human be able to do that?]

_Right, Shizu-chan? A normal human wouldn’t be able to do that. Except you aren’t human. You’re a monster, a plague, an anomaly that deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth._

**[You’re right Nakura-san!]**

[Plus, it’s all of you guys versus one person. He’ll never have the chance. Just think of how the news would carry. “Green Dragons slay the strongest man in Ikebukuro”. Or better yet, “Green Dragons slay the strongest former Dollars member”]

And just like that, the pieces are all laid out across the board and ready to be moved. The pawn goes there, rook goes right and look at that, they have the king surrounded. Izaya points his finger at the said king and keeps it there, hovering over the chess piece with just the tip of his fingernail grazing the wooden piece. _Soon_ , he thinks and flicks the piece so that it topples over. 

He returns to his computer and proceeds to give out specific instructions masked as helpful suggestions. Where Shizuo might be, what time would be the best to strike, etc. A specific time, a specific place, and all Izaya has to do is head on over to Ikebukuro to witness it; to see the downfall of the biggest nuisance in his life.

All he has to do now is wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And he can hardly wait. He’s already so giddy.

“Namie-san~,” he sings, calling for his secretary. She doesn’t respond initially so he calls out again and she emerges from the other end of the apartment.

“What?” she asks, exasperated. He jumps up from his chair with an excited grin.

“Get your coat on, we’re going out,” he chimes. She places her hands on her hips and shifts her weight to the side.

“Why?” she pesters. He skips over to her and stops just in front of her before clasping his hands together.

“Because hopefully, we will witness history in the making~”

-.-.-.-.-

Roughly half an hour later and he’s perched on the rooftop edge of a tall building, looking down at the city below. Namie is a few paces behind him, continuously rolling her eyes and muttering something about how much she doesn’t want to be there while clutching her elbows because of the cold. He has to admit, it is a little chilly, but when his heart is beating this fast, he hardly cares.

He brings a pair of binoculars up to his eyes and stares intently at the scene below. It’s already dark out but he can still make out the figures below illuminated faintly by the street lights. Shizuo walking peacefully, alone and unaware of what will hit him. Of course, Izaya has his doubts about the gang’s capabilities but it’s still worth a shot, especially since Shizuo looks just about as tired as Izaya feels most of the time.

Then it happens, a plethora of green surrounding the former bartender. Izaya inches closer to the ledge, almost to the point of falling off. His smile twists and turns into something malicious, something absolutely wretched. A part of him hopes that this will be Shizuo’s end, and a part of him hopes it’s not, if only so he can finish the job himself.

“I hate violence” Izaya says in tandem to the movement of Shizuo’s lips. That doesn’t deter the group from coming after him. They rush him in a swarm and Shizuo, expectantly, fights them all back as if they are just clumps of dust falling around him. But with an entire crowd surrounding him, each with a weapon, even a monster like Shizuo gets a few scratches here and there.

“Namie-san, come, come, you’re missing all the fun,” Izaya hums and briefly looks back at her just for one moment, only to see her staring intently at her phone (presumably at pictures of Seiji).

“Not interested,” she mutters back. Izaya doesn’t want to spend any more time trying to convince her. He has bigger things to worry about. He sharply turns his head to where Shizuo is only to see him very clearly and very distinctly staring in his direction. Izaya freezes. There’s no possible way Shizuo can see him in the dead of night and so far away, is there?

“I-ZA-YA.” Shizuo’s loud scream pierces through the cold air.

And then, Shizuo gets stabbed. 

And Izaya drops his binoculars.

In an instant, a sharp pain slices through his stomach. He shudders, reeling forward and clutching his gut tightly. It hurts. Like a knife twisting and turning, slicing through his internal organs and turning them into mush. He groans out in pain, vision turning spotty and blurry, his mind going hazy and disoriented.

Why? Why does it hurt so much?

The pain keeps persisting, making him feel cold and weak. The chilly winter air isn’t doing him any favors either. The continuous prickles have him groaning out over and over like a broken record to the point it gets hard to breathe, as if his lungs are two untied balloons hissing out the air. He grips the ledge of the rooftop.

Fuck, he can’t do this.

His arms feel weak and his legs are slowly losing feeling, turning into gelatin without sufficient strength to keep him standing. He drops to his knees, unable to keep himself upright. A sharp jolt shoots up his kneecaps the moment he collides with the concrete, a pain that pulsates all the way up to his thighs. He winces and groans out again, head spinning around and around. It’s as if he’s being thrown left and right in a loop of never ending seasickness, like a sailor stuck on a rocking boat in the middle of a storm.

He needs help.

“N-Namie,” he retches quietly. There’s no response. Still probably too absorbed in her phone. 

“Namie.” He repeats a little louder this time, just barely audible enough for the sound to carry across the open rooftop.

“Wh.. th.. fuck?” her voice resonates in his ears, along with the nimble pitter-patter of her heels click-clacking as she rushes over to him.

“Iz.. wha...hell? Wh.. mat...ter?” He still can’t quite make out what she’s saying. It’s all just a mess of an echo in his head. He can barely even keep his vision focused, much less his hearing. He can feel her sharp fingernails digging into his shoulders through the fabric of his coat, but he just keeps shaking his head, blinking rapidly to clear the spots dancing across his vision.

“My- I- MMmm dying,” he groans. Fuck, it hurts. It hurts so much he can’t take it. He feels the corners of his eyes start stinging with the familiar sensation of tears, slowly breaking free and descending down his cheeks. He starts to go into a full panic, his breath becoming more labored than before.

“Yo…ot.” Those same hands that had been holding his shoulders now suddenly press harder, sharp talons digging in to the point they might pierce his skin, even though his winter jacket. Suddenly he’s lurching forward again, this time not of his own accord. Then back. Then forward again. Till he feels the return of the bile rising up his throat, burning his esophagus.

“Izaya, you’re not. Get a _grip_ on yourself,” Namie says sternly. Her voice is a bit clearer but still distorted as she forces his body to move, turning him into a bobble head doll.

“MHMM gonna…throw…up,” he moans and Namie immediately stops shaking him.

“Izaya!” she screams as he goes limp against her hold. Her voice is like a shrill drill piercing straight through his skull.

“Don’t…don’t shout,” he murmurs and leans his head forward, closing his eyes if only to drift away into the dark void of nothingness; if only to become absolutely numb and stop feeling this pain. He’s pulled out of the abyss by her cold hands grabbing a hold of his flushed cheeks. He reopens his eyes slowly only to gaze at Namie’s thin scowl. 

“Is this another one of your practical jokes?” She hisses out, her expression stone-faced and serious. If not for the fact that Namie is still holding his cheeks, he would have shaken his head as his reply. Instead, he’s forced to verbally utter it.

“N-no,” he stutters. He can’t even come up with a proper explanation for his actions. All he knows is the pulsating ripples of pain tearing through his gut.

“It just..hurts… it hurts so much…”

Namie sighs, troubled, and releases his cheeks. Without thinking much, or thinking at all really, Izaya leans forward and rests his forehead against Namie’s shoulder before wrapping his arms around her waist into an awkward hug. The sharp pain in his stomach persists, so right now all he needs is at least some form of comfort, even if he would never admit it out loud.

Just something to hold onto, to anchor himself to, to stop the ever constant rocking. She reciprocates his hold, tentatively wrapping her arms around his shoulders and giving him a small pat on the back. She doesn’t address the sudden display of affection nor does she say anything for at least a few minutes, giving Izaya the time to calm down and try to deal with the pain. In those few minutes, he feels the pain ease up slightly, but not to the point of disappearing entirely. At that point, he peels away from her and mentally pretends their embrace had never occurred.

“Where does it hurt?” she asks softly. He looks down, his bangs falling over his eyes and making his expression appear even darker.

“Here,” he mumbles as he runs his hand over his shirt across his stomach, just barely grazing it with a feather-light touch. She stares at him, her gaze falling to the area he’s covering with the palm of his hand. Then, she speaks.

“Alright, I’m calling for an ambulance,” she states flatly. It takes Izaya a moment to fully register what she’d said. He swears he’s so out of it that he actually thinks he’d heard Namie say she wants to call an ambulance, despite knowing full well the extent of his disdain towards hospitals. Except the serious expression she’d donning tells him otherwise.

“No, I’m fine,” he quickly lies. Though she already has her phone in her hand, her thumb hovering over the number pad. Izaya shakily lifts his hand and covers her screen with his palm, preventing her from pressing any numbers.

“I don’t need to go to a hospital.” His voice is a little louder this time, and though surely it should sound more confident, it comes off being the opposite; shaky and muffled.

“Something is clearly bothering you, and given the location of your pain, I believe it might even be appendicitis. Which, if untreated, could kill you,” she scolds, crossing her arms over her bust.

“I suppose you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Comes his dry reply, followed by a sardonic grin. She scowls, her face scrunching up to the point Izaya can clearly see each defined wrinkle.

“And then who would write my paychecks?” she grumbles.

“Figures that’s all you’d be interested in,” he sighs in response, his voice quiet and melancholy. He should have expected that the only thing the shrewd woman would want out of him is her reimbursement for her time. Namie doesn’t deny his claim and instead shifts the subject back to Izaya’s health. She presses her hand against his forehead before he has time even to think about flinching away.

“At least you don’t have a fever, even if your skin is clammy and you look whiter than a sheet. I’m telling you, if it’s appendicitis-.“ He cuts her off with his hand. 

By now, Izaya’s mind is a little clearer. All in a flash, the ghost pain disappears just as quickly as it had appeared. He can’t hear any more sounds from the ground below and he briefly tilts his head to look over the ledge, only to see splatters of blood and a pile of people dressed in green trying to collect themselves.

But Shizuo is nowhere to be seen.

“It’s not. And trust me, a hospital wouldn’t be able to help me. Not with this,” he says. He already knows the cause of his ailment. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Which is saying a lot, because nearly nothing makes sense. The feeling of a knife twisting in his gut at the same time as Shizuo getting stabbed? Could it be any more obvious?

Truthfully, a part of Izaya had already suspected this would happen. That same part, however, had not accounted for the intensity of the pain he would be in.

“Oh and do pray tell what _this_ is, Mr. Medical Professional?” Namie’s words snap him back to reality. 

“ _This_ is because of…Shizu-chan,” he answers. Though it’s not much of an explanation at all and leaves her feeling even more perplexed than before.

“Heiwajima-san?” She stares at him, her face twisting in confusion. Not like she’d been paying any attention anyway, but as far as she’s concerned, Shizuo had been on the ground below and hadn’t come after Izaya in the entirety of the time they’d spent on the rooftop.

“It’s complicated. I’ll explain later…maybe. I just… let’s go back for now, ne?” he says as he straightens. He hopes that it’s the end of his suffering for the evening. He hopes, thought things never turn out how he hopes they would. 

-.-.-.-

A short cab ride later and he’s entering his apartment, perched on Namie’s shoulder as she helps him inside. He’s still a little jolted as he takes off his coat and turns to Namie once it’s off.

“Help me up the stairs?” he asks. She scowls.

“If you still feel bad then I’m calling-“

“Please?” he pleads, cutting her off.

A small moment of hesitation, and then, with a small groan, she complies. She slides her hand around his waist and uses the other to sling his arm over her shoulder in order to help him stand. He’s thankful at least that now the pain is nothing more than a steady pulse, as opposed to feeling like his guts have been ripped open. He mostly slides his feet along and barely manages to lift them high enough to take individual steps. Namie does most of the work for him, dragging him along to the best of her ability.

She mutters something about not being paid enough for all the shit she does and Izaya manages a dry chuckle, muttering something in response about upping her salary yet again. Finally, he makes it to the bed and unceremoniously falls onto his mattress before Namie helps him under the covers and tucks him in like a mother would do to a child. If he wasn’t feeling so awful he might have even asked her to read him a bedtime story.

“Thank you,” he says softly. She gives him a nod and exits his room. As soon as she’s gone, he straightens out his body and lays on his back, trying to ignore the minuscule jolts of pain. He still has some pain medication left over from the time Shinra had prescribed them to him. He wonders if he should perhaps take one. Or two. Or three, depending if the first two would help at all. Assuming that they would serve their purpose. He isn’t sure. How does one combat pain that technically isn’t even real in the first place?

His thoughts are cut short as Namie reenters his room, startling him with the sight of her holding a mug in one hand and a hot water bottle in the other. She notices him staring at her.

“Chamomile. Should make you feel a bit better,” she explains as she sets the mug down on the bedside table. She then gently places the hot water bottle on top of the duvet covers where Izaya’s stomach is.

He knows it won’t help in the slightest. He knows, yet still offers her a small smile.

“Thank you.”

She leaves promptly after and Izaya snuggles into the water bottle, enjoying the little burst of heat to his otherwise shivering body. It’s crazy to think that just a few hours ago he’d been hunched over forward with the feeling of his guts spilling out, and now? Now it’s nothing more than a distant memory. A memory he should just forget, yet at the same time, can’t stop thinking about. What if Shizuo had actually died? What kind of pain would he have felt then?

His thoughts are interrupted by Namie bursting in again.

This time, she’s accompanied by the annoying buzzing of the vibrating cell phone in her hand. He focuses on the device. It’s _his_ phone. Oh, right. He’d left it in his coat pocket.

“You have a call,” she says curtly, as if Izaya doesn’t have eyeballs to see with. Though given how he’d been unable to hear her, it isn’t a long shot off assuming he’d have other complications that would restrict his senses due to this…this thing. Izaya clutches the water bottle and presses it deeper into his waist.

“From who?” he asks. Namie squints at the screen and reads off the caller ID.

“From…” she scowls.

“Shizu-chan”

Izaya’s eyes go wide.

“Shizu-chan?”

“Shizu-chan.”

“Shizu-chan?”

“That’s what it says on the screen. Shizu-chan with a stupid heart emoji. Now are you going to answer it or not because I don’t have time for guessing games,” she scowls. Izaya holds out his hand.

“Just give it here,” he instructs and she puts the still ringing phone into his hand. Before the ringing can cease, Izaya presses the call button and Namie abruptly turns to leave, clearly not wanting to witness the conversation. As soon as Izaya brings the phone up to his ear, he’s suddenly struck with a sharp pain again. He stifles a gasp by biting his bottom lip.

No, no, not again. For fuck’s sake, not again.

That same sharp stinging; he can’t even say a single word because of it. The other end of the line is silent too, spare for the sound of strangled breathing. Then finally he hears Shizuo’s voice, low and rugged. 

“It was you, wasn’t it? You bastard.”

Izaya blinks a few times, trying to clear his head and ignore the pain.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific if you want an answer out of me, Shizu-chan,” Izaya murmurs. It’s a miracle he’d even managed to utter that much, considering it feels as if he has poison coursing through his veins, killing him slowly with each passing second.

“Don’t play dumb. You sent that fucking gang after me, didn’t you?” Despite the few sharp gasps of pain here and there, Shizuo’s voice still sounds as angry as ever. Izaya is still a little dazed but at least he remembers what his original plan had been.

“Ah, right. I suppose I did,” he mutters all too casually.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? I got stabbed because of you!” Comes Shizuo’s yell and Izaya flinches back from the volume. His head is already starting to throb again, and Shizuo shouting at him really isn’t helping.

“Oh you did now, did you? That must have hurt a lot,” he replies a little bitterly. But what Izaya is bitter about is the fact that he’d made a terrible mistake. He’d miscalculated, and now has to suffer the consequences. 

Izaya can hear some shuffling and a voice in the background, presumably Shinra’s, telling Shizuo to just sit still and calm down. Then he feels another prickle at his stomach. He figures that at this point, it’s probably Shinra disinfecting the wound, and Izaya just so happens to be stuck feeling the same exact sensation as Shizuo.

“FUCK YOU! That wound was nearly fatal. I could have died!”

But he hadn’t, and Izaya already knows that. He knows that because otherwise, he’s sure he would have felt it.

“Ah, I suppose you could have. Yet here we are, with you clearly still alive and well,” Izaya says, a tone bordering on dry sarcasm.

“You fucking flea just wait until I come over there and exterminate you like the fucking pest you are.” Shizuo’s words fly out in such a quick burst that they meld together, making him almost incomprehensible, but Izaya gets the gist of it. Though at this point, he’s past the point of truly caring. He just wants this misery to end. And hopefully, if Shizuo does come to kill him, he will also experience the same pain and drop dead as well.

“Sure thing Shizu-chan, be my guest.” Izaya doesn’t intend his words to come off as sarcastic but Shizuo probably interprets it that way. 

“What, you think this is _funny?_ Of fucking course you do, you sick, twisted fuck. Taking pleasure in other people’s suffering.”

And to this, Izaya can’t help but start giggling slightly, even if each small laugh sends pain ripping through his body. He laughs not at the scenario of Shizuo getting stabbed and almost dying. He laughs not at the inconvenience it must have brought him. His laugh is pitiful, hopeless even. He’s laughing at the stupidity of it all. He’s laughing at himself for being so foolish.

Not at Shizuo. No. He’s just trying to laugh the pain away. 

“No, Shizuo. That’s not quite right. Not in the slightest,” Izaya utters after having calmed down. Under normal circumstances, Izaya would revel in the prospect of Shizuo being injured in one way or another. He’d love to explore the beast’s capabilities and see just how much it would take to finally end his pathetic existence.

Under. Normal. Circumstances.

But there isn’t a single thing about this that’s normal. For once, Izaya does something unexpected. Something he’d never be caught doing, much less to Shizuo. Something that would have otherwise even shocked himself if not for the sheer exhaustion he feels over the entirety of the situation already.

“It’s not funny that I sent those people after you, and for that, I apologize.” He apologizes, his voice quiet and sincere.

“Wait, _what_?” Shizuo hisses back.

“I said I was sorry.”

Silence follows, so quiet that one could hear a pin drop. Izaya wonders if perhaps Shizuo had hung up on him. He pulls the phone away to check only to see that the line is still connected.

“Shizu-chan?” he asks. Still more silence. Izaya narrows his eyes. He doesn’t want to deal with this anymore. His thumb is already hovering over the ‘end call’ button, inching closer and closer. He’s about to press it when Shizuo speaks again.

“You’re fucking with me right now, aren’t you?” He growls. His voice had lost some of the initial edge to it. It’s quieter and less angry than before.

“I assure you I’m not”

“That’s-“

“And if that will be all, then I’ll be going now. Get better soon and try to avoid getting into more fights, ne? Bye-bye now.”

Izaya doesn’t wait for Shizuo to respond. He hangs up the phone and throws it on the other side of the bed.

 _“Stupid Shizuo, stupid Shizuo, stupid Shizuo.”_ The amalgamation of alliteration slips out past his lips in constant repetition as he begins plotting his next move.


End file.
